Daddy's Girl
by Kurt
Summary: COMPLETE. Clarice Starling awakens from Dr. Lecter's hypnosis, only to rediscover what her life was like with him.
1. The Sleeper Awakens

_Author's note: Here's an idea that had been percolating in the back of my head for about a year.  Reviews are gratefully appreciated.  _

Someday a cup will come together.  Or somewhere Starling may hear a crossbow string and come to some unwilled awakening, if indeed she even sleeps.  

                December to those in the northern lands blows blustery and cold.  Visions of snow, ice, breath pluming visibly in the air like cigarette smoke, snowmen smiling immobile from lawns – these are the images of December.  

December in the south is far different.  For those in southern climes, December is far milder, leading to sunny, warm days.  Go far enough south, past the equator, and December is a time of summer, as hot and muggy as June is to those in the northern hemisphere.  

                And December the 10th is a bright and sunshiny day here in this park in Buenos Aires.  The northern half of the world is cold and wintry, turned away from the sun.   The asylum in which Hannibal Lecter spent eight years locked in a tiny cell without even so much as a view lies knee-deep in snow.  The Shenandoah River, where Clarice Starling used to run, is a huge vodka on the rocks, chunks of ice bobbing in its length as they rush along mindlessly on their journey to sea. 

                But not here.  Here the sun shines bright and the park and the sky are the bright living green and blue of a child's box of crayons.  Here families laugh and the air carries back the shriek of excited children playing on the playground.  Occasionally the smell of _criollo _cooking on a grill may tickle one's nostrils, if one gets close enough.  A group of archers are setting up for target practice.  Of course, they have the permission of the park rangers to do such a thing, and of course they ensure that no one inadvertently wanders behind the bales of hay they have set up.  They just wish to shoot some targets.  Here on this beautiful summer day no one really wants anyone else to get _skewered, _do they?  

                Skewered?  Well, no.  But these archers _will _transfix a woman's life very shortly with their arrows.  One of them is excited to have purchased a new crossbow, and he shows his friends his new toy with glee.  

                "Try it out," one of them urges.  

                The crossbowman lifts his crossbow to his eye and cocks it.  Through the scope his world is reduced to the sight of the target, bright rings of color inviting the bolt nocked within the crossbow.  He means no harm to the woman walking fifty feet to his left.  In fact, he doesn't even see her.  He simply aims his crossbow at the target and fires.  

                _Hmmmmm.  _The string vibrates at about a D below middle C.  The vibration teases the air, forcing the air to dance to its tune, much like another eleven years ago and thousands of miles north.  Although the bolt does not strike the center of the target, the firing of the crossbow most definitely hits its mark.  

                The woman stops for a moment, her blue eyes wide.  Her throat works, as if something inside has jammed it up.  After eleven years of sleeping, Clarice Starling is finally awake.  

                _What the hell, _Clarice Starling thinks.   _Mason's goons fucking shot me.  Last thing I remember is…what?  _

The last thing she can remember clearly is the darts, stinging like mosquitoes.  Everything after that is a series of reflections in broken mirror shards.  Dr. Lecter leaning over her.  Her own voice, droning.  Then…

                There is so damn _much _of it.  Spanish, she knows that.  Her college French and Italian is much stronger than it ever was before.  An endless hall of memories, all kept in the shards of broken mirrors, and Special Agent Clarice M. Starling can only walk down it, glass gritting under her feet, looking into each shard to see what thought or memory it may reflect.  

                _The sound of this stringed instrument…your peace and self-sufficiency…_Dr. Lecter's voice, smooth and deadly as a knife blade.  Clarice shivers.  Krendler's voice, loud and boisterous and as clueless as it ever was.  _How is it?…Smells great!  _

                How long does this hall littered with shards last?  The memories, thoughts, and feelings of a decade lie before her in ruins, and she cannot put any of it into some kind of coherent order.  Where the hell is 'Delia?  Where is _she?  _How did she come to leave Mason Verger's farm and end up here, in this sunny park?  

                Glancing down at herself reveals odder things.  She is wearing a sundress and high-heeled sandals.  A touch of her hair tells her it is longer than before.  With trepidation she pulls a strand to her eyes.  It is  blonde.  _Blonde.  _

                When the hell did she become Miss Froufrou?  She'd never dressed like this before; battered BDU pants and boots had been her preferred dress.  The purse swinging from her side is made by Prada.  Clarice opens it and paws through her wallet.  She recognizes the picture on her driver's license but not the name or the language it is written in.  _Provincia de Buenos Aires.  Licencia de conducir.  _It makes no sense.  All she can do is stare at it in befuddlement.

                The stuff in the purse puzzles her too.  Makeup accoutrements.  Tubes and brushes and a compact.  A mascara brush.  Good brands, too.   A cell phone she doesn't recognize at first glance and then does.  Glancing at the date makes her goggle for a moment.  She puts it away.  This is a tiny, tiny phone and must be expensive.  These are things she has never owned before

                Well no, that isn't exactly right.  She has, but secretly.  Just as the couture publications lay at the bottom of her underwear drawer, hidden away like shameful pornography, Clarice has used makeup.  But only in her duplex bathroom, far away from where anyone might see it.  She would no more walk around with this sort of stuff than she would walk into work with a kilo of cocaine in the pocket of her BDU pants.

                A few feet ahead of her, a little girl turns to look at her curiously.  She is about five years old, Clarice thinks.  She wears a cute little dress and frilly ankle socks. Clarice grins the way everyone grins at a cute little girl.  A second glance wipes that from her.  

                The little girl's resemblance to her is clear as day.  Her background is clearly more moneyed than Clarice Starling's shirttail upbringing in rural West Virginia.  Those shoes and dress cost somebody plenty.  Still, the face that looks at her is much like a young version of her own, and the little girl's light brown hair is the same color that Clarice's was when she was a little girl.  For a moment Clarice thinks of her younger sister, back in the ramshackle house in West Virginia.  

                More memories spring to life from their shards.  The feel of an elastic belt wrapped around her middle.  The feel of her own belly swollen high above what it once was.  A doctor, smiling professionally: _Señora Alvarez, you're almost four millimeters dilated.  _

_                Jesus Christ on a pogostick, something is seriously, seriously screwed up here, _Clarice Starling thinks.  __

"Mama, can we get ice cream?" the little girl asks, her eyes on Clarice.  

                Clarice stares at the little girl.  Her tongue grows fat between her teeth.  _Don't ask me, kid, ask your mom, _is what she means to say. But the shards of memory remind her that the little girl _is _doing just that.   Impossible as it may seem, Clarice remembers enough bits and pieces to tell her the impossible truth.  She remembers a baby in a white blanket, wrapped up tight and put in her arms.  _She's in perfect health, her Apgars were nine and nine.  _

_                Mama, can we get ice cream?  _No, that _isn't _what the little girl has said.  It was more something like _Mama, podriamos conseguir helado?  _Some mystical ability has translated the meaning of her words for Clarice.  It is almost as if Clarice can speak Spanish.  

                _How the hell could I possibly have a kid and not remember it?  _Clarice thinks.  She feels sweat begin to break out on the back of her neck and her shoulders.  For a moment the world spins and she is dizzy.  This…this just can't be.  She is a thirty-three-year-old unmarried woman, and a suspended agent of the FBI….isn't she?  

                Clarice stops and glances around the park in utter confusion.  Has she gone to sleep and awakened as someone else?  Has some evil dwarf cast a spell and switched her mind into another person's body?  For a moment her mind seizes on that stupid 70's movie _Freaky Friday.  _There is no explanation at hand.  The little girl wants ice cream, sure, but Clarice doesn't think she'll have much input into why she seems to think that Special Agent Clarice M. Starling is her mom.  

                Or, for that matter, why Clarice can remember bits and pieces of a child's birth that she somehow knows are connected with the girl in front of her.  Or why Clarice is wearing a dress and heels.  Or why the cell phone in Clarice's purse reads _10 Diciembre 2009. _

_                This…this can't be happening, _Clarice Starling thinks.  

                "Mama, are you all right?"  The little girl eyes her curiously.  She stops and stares at Clarice with some concern.  

                Clarice smiles and feels the burn of cold sweat.  Everything her eyes tell her is real…but it can't be.  It just can't.  Something is severely screwed up here.  The last thing Clarice Starling can remember that isn't broken up into shards is the fall of 1998, saving Dr. Lecter from Mason Verger and his goons.  Eleven years seem to have impossibly slipped by, like a long afternoon nap.  

                How has this happened?  How has she become Clarice Van Winkle?  How did she come to be in this park, with this little girl, in these clothes?  Why is there a Mercedes key on her key fob?  

                The little girl can offer her no answers, but she gives Clarice part of the puzzle.  Her head tilts like that of a parrot and she studies Clarice bloodlessly, with far more gravitas than makes sense for a five-year-old girl.  

                "If you're sick, you should talk to papa," she observes.  "He's a doctor.  He knows _all about sick people."  Clarice's breath catches in her throat for a moment.  The memory of a man behind a stout nylon net crosses her mind.  This image is not broken into shards; it is a long saved and held memory, like a keepsake photograph given pride of place in an album.  _

                The little girl's face is derived from hers.  She is of Starling blood.  That is something Clarice's stunned eyes cannot deny.  Even despite the impossibility of the situation, she knows her own kin, and the little girl is her own kin.  But her eyes…Clarice swallows, looks away, and looks back.  The little girl's eyes do tell her a lot about how she may have come to be here and why she cannot remember more than a decade.  

                Set in that small version of Clarice Starling's face is a pair of glowing maroon eyes.  


	2. Over Ice Cream

                Clarice begins to walk slowly towards her daughter again, staring at her as if she had never seen her before.  In a way, she has not.  For the past eleven years she has been sleeping.  Now she is awake.  

                "Um…um…," Another shard gives up its particular treasure: the name of this little girl she has borne.  "Susana?"  

                The little girl stops and tilts her head again.  Clarice shivers. Seeing Dr. Lecter's favorite gesture mimicked by a small girl is spooky.  What else of his has this girl-child learned from him?  For a moment Clarice envisions getting a note from a kindergarten teacher:  _Dear Mrs. Lecter, unfortunately you will need to keep Susana home for this coming year.  She has killed four of her classmates with safety scissors and brought their severed heads to class for Show and Tell.  _

No, that isn't a shard of memory; that is a phantasm conjured up by her own mind.  At least Clarice hopes so.  What else lies captive in the shards?  She hasn't _really _been married to Hannibal Lecter…has she?   

                "What, mama?" the little girl asks.  With a child's unconscious greed she glances over at a man in pristine whites pushing an equally white wagon.  What she wants is clear enough.  "Mama, are you all right?"  

                "I'm fine," Clarice says, and glances around her.  The scenery is pleasant enough: she had been going to the park with her daughter.  To play.  But she doesn't remember any of the past decade, except for what fragments of memory have made themselves available to her.  It is eerie.  

                But ice cream will allay the kid's suspicions.  "I'm fine, honey," Clarice repeats.  "C'mon, let's go get ice cream."    Vaguely it dawns on her that she probably should speak Spanish to the little girl.  All the same, Susana seems to understand English perfectly well.  

                "Okay," she answers, switching languages without a problem.  She waits a bit until Clarice catches up to her and offers her hand.  It is small, white, and clean.  Clarice might've played out in the woods and in the dirt as a girl, but she doesn't think her daughter does.  These are the hands of a little girl who plays indoors, with a dollhouse and a tea set.  Her hands are cute and innocent of calluses.  Her fingernails are colored in a cute pink shade.  

                _Not only do I have a daughter, but she wears nail polish?  _Clarice thinks dizzily.  _Pink nail polish?  **My **daughter wears pink nail polish? ** I **let my daughter wear pink nail polish?  Gaaah.  _

The two proceed through the park to the wagon.  Clarice smiles calmly, wondering what the hell she is going to do now.  She feels fraudulent.  For one thing, she can _understand _Spanish here in this brave new world, but can she speak it?  

                She opens her mouth as the ice-cream man turns to look at them.  He calmly observes them as he has observed a thousand mothers and daughters over the years of serving ice cream.   Clarice smiles nervously and opens her mouth.  

                What she _expects _to come out is Southern-tinged American English.  What comes out instead is somewhat accented Argentine _castellano.  _She isn't even sure herself what she asks for, but the ice-cream man smiles, nods, and reaches into the depths of his wagon.  Gusts of vapor puff from the open freezer door as he withdraws two paper-wrapped packages.  He hands them to Clarice calmly and gives her an expectant look.  

                Susana takes one of the ice-cream pops and strips the paper wrapping.  A bit of the ice cream gets on her hand, and she seems displeased, like a cat sticking its paw in water.  Clarice takes her wallet out of her purse and paws out a few bills.  The ice-cream man nods, takes them and offers her a few silver coins in change.  

                _I have no idea if that guy just ripped me off or not, _Clarice thinks disjointedly.  Everything _seems _normal.  Her feeling of disjointedness comes from herself.  Everyone else here seems to think she is just another mother in the park, buying her progeny ice cream.  

                "Let's sit at the tables," Susana suggests, pointing at some wooden tables not far away.  Clarice smiles again, nervously.  The day is bright, the park is warm, and she is having ice cream with her daughter.  What more could she ask for?  

                _To not feel like I'm a puzzle piece that just got shoved into the wrong place, _she thinks.  _Everybody thinks I'm some soccer mom here in…._

Another shard breaks, another mist of memory swirls back into her consciousness.  

                _[Buenos Aires] _

_                Okay.  Buenos Aires.  _A puzzle piece: that makes more sense now that she thinks about it.  If a jigsaw puzzle is complicated enough and large enough, there will be two pieces that are the same shape.  The pieces next to it will think the piece fits correctly; it lays cheek by jowl next to its mates, but it is still the wrong piece.  And there is no puzzle as large and complicated as life itself.  But Clarice Starling cannot help but think that she has been put in quite the wrong place.  

                The ice cream is cold and sweet, chocolate flavoring sweet on her taste buds.  A child's pleasure, but one Clarice finds pleasant.  Her daughter eats her own ice cream contentedly.  

                "Papa doesn't like ice cream," she says casually, as if her father is an ordinary man.  

                Clarice blinks and tries to think back to the file.  Quail, wine that costs as much as a car, that sort of thing.  Ice cream from the Good Humor man?  No, that wasn't his style.  Well, here it was probably the Bueno Humor man.  

                How could this young girl not realize what Dr. Lecter is?  Does she think he is like any other father?  Surely some aspect of his particular cold and sharp brand of sociopathy must be visible.  

                Then Clarice realizes that the very existence of this little girl indicates that he must have been better at hiding it than she thought.  For a moment she is torn between fear and anger.  Fear of what the future holds.  Her anger is for the past.  Dr. Lecter has stolen eleven years from her as easily as a master pickpocket might slip her wallet from her purse.  From 1998 to 2009, in one fell swoop.  What has happened to her over those three thousand days?  What might she have experienced?    As she calmly eats her ice cream, she wants those years back.                 

                _What the hell do I do now?  _Clarice Starling thinks.    

                "Papa…," God, even referring to him by a child's name for her father is weird.  Dr. Lecter is not like other men.  He has not occupied the same space as other men.  He is different, the _other.  _In a word, he is evil.  

                But to this girl swinging her legs casually, he is not.  Her facial features are Clarice's, but those eyes staring out at her are Hannibal Lecter's in miniature.  As they touch Clarice's calmly, the glob of chocolate ice cream in Clarice's throat turns into a gummy lump.  It takes an unexpected effort to swallow it.  

                _Well, no, honey.  Papa doesn't like ice cream.  Papa prefers brains of Justice Department stooges.  _

She blinks.  Where has _that _come from?  The vision of Paul Krendler in the stout oak armchair enters her mind unbidden, and she shudders at the sight of his naked brain, wet and gooey, reflecting Dr. Lecter's candlelight.  

                Then she hears her own voice:  _See if I sound like Oliver Twist when I ask for MORE.  _A blast of horror strikes here, and suddenly she doesn't want the Popsicle anymore.  She has to force herself to take another bite.  

                "Papa…," she begins anew.  God, even thinking of Hannibal Lecter as a father is weird.  What had he done with this little girl?  Had he brought her oranges and SNO BALLS?   Did he tuck her in at night and check on her while she was sleeping?  

                Even though she knew in her head that Dr. Lecter was completely indifferent to children, she still found the idea of Hannibal Lecter smiling pleasantly down at a sleeping child to be nothing short of terrifying.   He'd enjoyed playing with _her _mind.  A child's mind – the chance to stamp his particular malicious fun on a growing mind – would be an irresistible plaything for him.  

                "He…he has his own tastes," Clarice says, grinning in a rictus that is meant to be a motherly smile.                  

                Susana nods seriously.  Clarice does not think that she has any idea what Clarice is referring to.  "He only eats ice cream if it's _expensive.  _And made of pure ingredients."  

                _That hasn't changed, _Clarice thinks.  She smiles conspiratorially at her daughter.  _Her daughter.  _The shock is beginning to fade now.  The idea still strikes her as odd, but no longer inconceivable.  This young girl with her _is _her daughter.  

                As her daughter eats her ice cream with nary a care in the world, Clarice finds herself wondering more than angry.  What sort of life has she led?  Has Dr. Lecter killed again?  Has _she _been an accomplice?  She shudders at the thought.  

                A few more broken reflections in the shards: Susana at eighteen months old, her hand bandaged,  her face drawn down in pain and incomprehension.   Tears on her cheeks.  Clarice remembers holding her, trying to comfort her, cut to the very core in the way any parent whose child is in pain can be.  

                Clarice glances down at her daughter's left hand.  It is small and perfect.  In it she holds the paper wrapper to her Popsicle, tweezed between her finger and thumb as if distasteful.  _At least she doesn't litter, _Clarice thinks ruefully.  

                Between the middle and ring fingers of the child's hand is a thin red line.  It has the look of an old, faded scar.  An echo of Dr. Lecter's scar from the loss of his extra finger.  Fortunately, Susana's is much less obvious.  Another memory drifts to life: Dr. Lecter's voice, and the image of a syringe drawing clear fluid from a vial.  _Let me give her this…hold her hand, please.  _Her own voice, stressed and harried:  _What is that?  _His voice calm and collected, unaffected by his daughter's pain:  _Lidocaine.  It will numb the hand.  We'll start with a small dose and raise it if need be.  _

"Papa sometimes takes me to the gelato shop on the Avenida Alvear," Susana adds, unaware of Clarice's reverie in shards.  "He likes their ice cream."  

                Clarice smiles.  "Does he?"  

                The shock is fading, and she can try to think again.  She is in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  What she has to do is get the hell out of here before the monster can suck her back into the dark vortex she has spent eleven years in.  She'll have to take Susana.  Leaving her here in the monster's grasp is unthinkable.  Even if Susana does not know what the monster is.  

                _Oh man, what is Crawford gonna think of this?  _She thinks.  For a moment she sees herself at Quantico, smiling brightly in the fluorescent gloom.  _Hi, Jack!  I'm back and I've got a little surprise with me!            _

Even as she thinks it she knows it is wrong.  Jack Crawford is dead.  She isn't sure _how _she knows that, but she knows it is true.  The man she had looked up to for so long is as dead.  Just as the little girl the monster spawned on her is alive.  

                For a few minutes she lets Susana finish her ice cream.  It takes an act of effort for her to finish her own.  It gives her time to think, though, and that is what she needs.  Her wallet has plenty of money and a few gold credit cards.  

                Having something constructive to think about helps.  She will need a passport for herself and one for her daughter.  She doesn't look forward to explaining this situation to the consular officers.  Maybe she ought to get the hell out of town first.  Where else can she go?  

                _Uruguay.  _She doesn't know where that comes from, but it works.  If she can wheedle her way across the border into Uruguay, she will be safer.  Are the borders open?  She isn't sure.  If worst comes to worst she can find a way to sneak across.  Then she'll have to get some help.  Ardelia will help her.  The American consulate will help her, too.  

                Shit, for that matter, she can _drive _to the US if she has to.  She smiles calmly at her daughter.  _Susana, honey, today is the first day of the rest of your life.  _

"Well," she says, "now let's get going."  Whether it is to the American consulate or Uruguay or whether she's just going to drive north until she hits the US-Mexican border she doesn't know.  Her keys jangle as she pulls them from her purse and stands.  

                Susana does not rise.  She looks at her mother curiously.  "Where are you going?" she asks, her voice clear and cute and puzzled.  

                "We're going…home," Clarice says after a moment.  "So let's go to the car, and--," 

                The little girl's brow wrinkles and her eyebrows rise.  Clarice is reminded of herself whenever Ardelia said something that she found hard to believe.  It is her own _don't bullshit me _look, reflected in miniature.  

                "But, mama," Susana says slowly.  "We didn't _take _a car to get here.  Papa dropped us off."  Her head turns to look at a gleaming black Jaguar.  The car drifts out of traffic and pulls up to the sidewalk nearby.  It cruises elegantly to a stop.  Behind its dark windows, a shadow is visible behind the wheel.  

                An icy ball of fear begins to grow in Clarice's belly.  She turns and stares at the Jag.  Her palms grow wet with sweat as she sees the figure behind the wheel turn and look at her expectantly from behind the dark glass.  Then the door slowly opens and the figure begins to unfold itself from behind the wheel.  A pair of finely crafted wing tips strike the pavement.  

                "Oh, look," Susana says, and her face brightens.  "There's papa now."  


	3. Home Again Home Again

For a moment, the park stands in tableau. Clarice Starling sits at a park bench with her newfound daughter, watching a dark figure unfold itself from behind the wheel of an equally dark Jaguar. Fear makes her shoulder shake. Her breath comes in ragged, stuttering gasps. 

_Okay. Okay. No problem. Just grab Susana's hand and run. Run like hell. If he catches up with you, **scream. **_ _No, wait. Pick up the kid and run, she isn't running too fast with those little legs and those stupid patent-leather girly shoes. _

Perhaps she should fight him. Her purse is innocent of gun or Mace, but she has car keys. Those can make a better improvised weapon than people think. If she gets the keys out and slashes at his face, it will definitely ruin his day. They're not sharp, but they'll make him lose interest in fucking with her _very _quickly. 

Even so, she can feel her heart racing. Her stomach drops down low in a big dipsy doodle. For a moment she feels nauseous and pushes it away forcefully. She knows her technique. She has gotten down with felons and fought them in the dirt. Proper technique will make her invulnerable. 

_That's crap and you know it, Starling, _her mind informs her. _Brigham had perfect technique and what did it get him? A dirt nap, that's what. _

But she _has _to fight. She has no choice. She cannot let Hannibal Lecter walk away with an innocent five-year-old in tow. 

The man himself steps out from the car and stands in the sunlight, observing the two women in his life. Darts of light reflect off his glasses and strike her. Her tongue is not only dry with fear but positively scaly. She feels adrenalin dump into her system and feels somewhat lightheaded. 

__

Dr. Hannibal Lecter wears a dark suit of beautiful cut, tailored closely to his slim frame. A black fedora and smoked-lensed glasses shield him from the sun. The years have been kind to him. His face is not wrinkled, but it is harder-edged than before. As if it was _ever _soft to begin with. His features are cast in cruel detail: the very picture of an Inquisition priest. She could easily see him leaning over a tortured penitent: _Now then, confess and all this will be over with. _ His lips curl up in a cool smile as he observes wife and daughter. 

**_Mother _**and daughter, Clarice Starling cries out to herself, as if to pound against the cold marble wall of the inevitable. _I am not…I can't be…the monster's wife. _

The time for action will be in seconds. He will expect her to approach. Grab her daughter and haul ass, or mark up that handsome mug with the car keys? Which course of action will get her own tender butt and her daughter's out of harm's way the quickest and most efficiently? 

Her eyes lock on his. Even behind the glasses, she can tell his eyes are on hers. She swallows nervously and stares at him resolutely. Her nerves thrum like guitar strings as the knowledge of action swells. Her fingers tense. The time is now. 

Susana's hand slips from hers, the small warmth replaced by cool air against her empty, sweaty palm. Clarice sees a quick motion and gasps. 

The young girl sprints across the space separating Clarice Starling from Hannibal Lecter, her dress flapping around her. An icy electric bolt thrills Clarice's frame and for a moment she wants to scream. _Don't go there, it's dangerous, _is what she wants to shriek. But it is too late. 

Susana leaps up into her father's waiting arms. For a moment Clarice feels ill. Color drains from her face. Her little girl has put herself directly into the monster's grasp, like a foolish little girl in a Grimms Fairy Tale. 

Dr. Lecter is neither a tall man nor a physically imposing one. He is, according to Clarice's best knowledge, seventy-one years old. One might expect him to stagger when his daughter jumps up, eager to be held. He does not. He catches the little girl and holds her easily, along his arms the sense of her light weight. She laces her arms around his neck. 

The image of Dr. Lecter reaching down with his teeth and biting a huge chunk of bloody flesh from the girl's silken throat is so strong and vivid that it takes Clarice a moment or two to realize it is not real. Susana sits content in her father's arms, smiling like a cat with a saucer of sweet milk that it need not share. She favors Clarice with a satisfied smile that says all is right in her little world. 

_That's just like I used to do, _Clarice thinks, and she blanches gray. _She's daddy's girl. _

She cannot rip her daughter free from his arms. She cannot turn and run and leave her to Dr. Lecter's tender mercies. For the moment, Clarice is outmatched. Her daughter has been his effective pawn, taking her queen. 

Clarice's stomach lurches. Dr. Lecter tilts his head and observes her bloodlessly from behind his dark lenses. He has won this round. She can feel the eyes behind those lenses probing at her; a master thief's first attempts to probe a lock he has picked before and believes he has mastered. 

"Is something wrong, Maria?" he asks. His voice is metallic and calm. Susana beams at her from in his arms. More than anything, Clarice wants to shriek _Get down from there! It's dangerous! Don't you know what that man has **done**_? Susana adjusts herself in his arms. She is all smiles, her maroon eyes alight in a manner Clarice never expected to see in Dr. Lecter. The soft skin of her throat is but scant inches from Dr. Lecter's mouth. But Dr. Lecter is not looking at his daughter. They are both looking at Clarice, seemingly one unit, four maroon eyes all focused on her. 

****

Clarice holds herself trembling and submits to his gaze. Of _course _he can see that something is amiss. She is gray and pale and sweaty. As far as she knows,it was only a day ago that she sought to free Dr. Lecter from Mason Verger's clutches. Now? Identity, personality, location, nationality, eleven years, and her daughter's first five years, all stolen from her by this nimble thief standing ten feet away. And that daughter – a gift she _never _thought she would be given – sits in his arms, completely innocent of what her father actually is. 

To say no is to invite suspicion. Dr. Lecter looks slightly thinner-fleshed through the face than he did eleven years ago, but there is no reason to think he is a doddering old man or that he cannot tell that she would be lying. Besides, even through it all, that would be…_rude. _

"I don't feel well," she says. It is a stretch but not a lie. She cannot make out his eyes or his expression. Of _course _she doesn't feel well. Who would, in her situation? 

A moment's pause in which Clarice tries to figure out how much strength he may have lost and if she has any hope of prying Susana from his arms. His glacial reserve is as impenetrable as ever. His voice is calm. Amused? Hard to tell. 

"She was feeling sick at the park," Susana informs him happily. Dr. Lecter's head turns to examine his daughter for a few beats. She clearly brightens under his attention. Clarice's mind boggles. It is not that the idea is alien to her. That would be far too easy. Her mind boggles because she _does _understand. Never once had she ever been willing to acknowledge her own father's faults. She would have fought in an instant over a slur on his memory. He had been on a pedestal, the epitome of masculinity for her. No man could have measured up to him.

Susana is the same, but the father she admires so is a cold, cruel killer. 

_Oh man, what am I up against? _she thinks. 

"I see," Dr. Lecter says, still the uncarved block. "Well, come, then. I can examine you once we get home. Perhaps start you on some medication." 

Chills run up and down her spine. Get in a car? With him? Is this a clever bit of play or is he serious? Does he know? 

She can't tell. Dr. Lecter's insight into her is profound; her insight into him is limited. She can predict what he might buy, sure, but the man himself is granite to her crystal. She cannot see inside him. 

For the time being, though, she has no other choice. Maternal instinct and amnesia have fought within her, but maternal instinct has won the day. Leaving her daughter behind is simply unthinkable. The very idea cuts at her as tearing the flesh from her body would. If she flees alone, Dr. Lecter will disappear with her daughter. And God only knows what he knows now about staying hidden. 

He carries the little girl to the car and sets her down. She scrambles into the black depths of the back seat of the Jaguar. Clarice shudders and bites at her lip. It's bad enough that her daughter has to be in the monster's grasp; does she have to be so _eager _about it? 

With his hostage safe and sound in the back seat, where Clarice cannot get to her easily, Dr. Lecter observes her with a smile playing about the corner of his lips. The smile fades a bit as he watches her, replaced by a look of concern. She watches him warily. Is he going to try and grab her? He might. You never knew with him. 

"Maria, you don't look well at all," Dr. Lecter says. "Come, please. The servants have dinner waiting." 

Clarice doesn't want to get in the car. She's already lost so much. Get in the car with Dr. Lecter? Might as well walk through the bad areas of DC with no gun and a picket sign reading _I AM THE COP WHO KILLED EVELDA DRUMGO. _

Actually, worse. The Crips would just kill her. Dr. Lecter had done something worse; he had stolen her mind and replaced it with…what? After all she'd suffered, after all her determination, was it Dr. Lecter's desire that she be a combination of arm candy and broodmare? Had he wanted to get that hardy rural hardscrabble blood into his offspring? And then dress her up to tote around with him to the opera and all that tea-party crap? 

Her blood boils at the thought, but now is not the time. One must pick and choose one's battles so that one wins. 

__

He's got my baby is the thought that flashes across Clarice's mind. 

All right. She can do this. _Think of it as an undercover assignment. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to get in the car and pretend to be Dr. Lecter's Barbie doll. You should be well prepared for this assignment, Agent Starling, you've only **been** that brainwashed Barbie doll for eleven fucking years. Now if only you could remember a tenth of that stuff you'll be fine. _

"All right," she says tonelessly, her eyes locked on his dark lenses. Is he laughing at her behind them? She can't tell. 

She will have to be wary and careful always; her foe is sly beyond measure. But for now her course is set. 

Calmly, Clarice Starling walks over to the car. Her mind shrieks at her not to do this; she may risk falling back into the velvet pit of Lethe that she has lived in for the past eleven years. But she must play the hand she has and hope for better cards in the next draw. 

The door closes. The Jaguar's air is aromatic with the scent of a new car. Clarice sighs and clenches her hands hard enough that her fingers begin to cramp. Dr. Lecter settles himself down behind the wheel and closes his own door. The Jaguar is well made and the door closes with only the slightest _thump, _but it sounds to Clarice like a prison gate closing. Susana is calmly settled in the back, the seat belt a black stripe across her white dress. 

Then the Jaguar zips back into traffic with the ease of long skill, and vanishes into the metal river of traffic on the _avenida_. Clarice takes a moment to glance over at him. He seems focused mostly on driving. The silence in the car seems oppressive to her, bearing down on her like a lead vest. 

_Supercharged Jaguar. I was right on that. Good. Means the SOB isn't as smart as he thinks he is. I gotta be able to use that. _

Dr. Lecter drives fast but well. The Jaguar zigs in and out of traffic and finally turns in at a building near the French embassy. Clarice can see the tricolor flapping in the wind. A tall fence ensures that anyone who might wish to do the French harm will not be able to. Where is the American embassy? Is that locked up somewhere in the vault her memories of the last eleven years are locked in? 

The Beaux Arts mansion that he turns into takes Clarice's breath away, even knowing where and with whom she is with. Is that a _house? _Does she actually _live _there? The place is easily the size of a small office building. 

_And so does he, and odds are I wouldn't look in the basement if I were you, _she reminds herself. 

The Jaguar glides to a silent stop in front of the home. The ignition cuts off cleanly. Dr. Lecter turns and offers her a smile. 

"Home again, home again," he says drolly, and glances back at the five-year-old in the back seat. "Susana, be a good girl and go upstairs and prepare your bath. I wish to…see to your mother's illness." 


	4. En Garde

The silence in the car hangs heavy for a long moment after the little girl scurries inside to obey her father. A drop of sweat begins on tbe back of Clarice's neck and runs maddeningly down her back. She is in the car, alone, with the monster. 

Her muscles are electric with tension. Her hands clench and unclench. How the hell do you fight someone in a car? Is fighting even the best thing _to _do? He hasn't made any active moves against her. That is the truly frightening part of this: she _doesn't know. _Dr. Lecter has always been extremely talented at keeping his cards extremely close to his vest. 

What she _does _know is disenheartening: there is an innocent little girl in the house, and Clarice _must _take her along. The thought of Dr. Lecter raising a little girl alone makes her shudder. Clarice is far from entirely selfless; she knows perfectly well that for the short term, her ass is in greater danger than her daughter's. 

"So, tell me, Clarice," Dr. Lecter says, calm as a shark passing through dark water. "What is wrong?" 

Hearing her real name makes her hiss in breath. In some ways, that is worse. He called her Maria at the park, and that was the name on her license. That was only to be expected. But the thought of him sitting there calling her 'Clarice' in private is worse. It illustrates that Dr. Lecter knows exactly what he has reduced her to. 

_What's wrong? You brainwashed me and took my life away from me. You turned me into some piece of fluff to march around in stiletto heels and a party dress on your arm. You gave me a daughter and then took away the first five years of her life. Everything I've ever tried to do in my life, everything I've wanted – you took that away and overwrote what you wanted me to be like I was a fucking Microsoft Word document. _

"I just…I don't feel well," she whispers, wanting more than anything to be out of this car. 

"Are you febrile? Nauseous? You seem to be sweating." 

_Of **course **I am, _she thinks. _I'm in a car with a…monster. _

"I'm not sure what's wrong with me," she says, the first thing she says that is a lie. 

"I see," he says. He is calm and bloodless, his eyes hidden. That same sardonic grin plays on his lips. "Come inside, then. I will arrange for some medication before dinner." 

_If you think I am taking medication from you, buster, _Clarice thinks, _then you belong right back in that insane asylum. _

Dr. Lecter opens his door and stands, the crushed rock clicking under the soles of his shoes. He crosses around to open Clarice's door. Politely, he holds out his hand to assist her in alighting from the car. Clarice shudders and offers him her hand. _Gotta save the kid. I can't leave her here. _Then, after that, _Goddam mothering instinct. _

Her own heels click on the rocks under her feet as she observes the house. Dr. Lecter shifts his position to hold her upper arm. His grip is soft and does not hurt, but she can sense the power in his fingers. At any moment, they could clamp down on the slack muscle of her upper arm. Could he rip her arm right off if he wanted to? It wouldn't surprise her. At the least, he could yank it out of his socket without a second thought. Even as old as Dr. Lecter is now, she has no doubt of that. 

Calmly, he walks her forward to the house. She is slightly forward of him. He is simply a shade in her peripheral vision. That is uncomfortable; he can see what she is doing but she can't see him. The unpleasant feeling of being a puppet on his strings courses through her. Their footsteps echo in her ears. 

The door is stout and polished black. Brass hardware gleams mellowly. As she approaches the door, it opens seemingly by itself. She sucks in air and feels her stomach quiver. Behind the door is a darker-skinned man in a morning coat, white gloves, and stiff-fronted white shirt, his black hair slicked back into perfect submission. 

"Good evening, _señora, señor_," he says calmly. "_Señorita _Susana entered a few minutes ago; she has gone upstairs to take her bath. Her nanny is drawing it for her." 

Clarice simply stares at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Butler? Nanny? She has a butler and her daughter has a nanny? 

__

Man, oh man, what would Daddy think if he knew I had a nanny for my kid? She imagines his stunned snort. _Clarice Starling, can't you take care of your own daughter? Momma and I did fine and we had three. _

Dr. Lecter takes his servants in stride. "Thank you, Joachim," he says directly. "I'm afraid the _señora _is not feeling well. Would you bring some Pepto-Bismol, please? Then you are dismissed for the night."

"Of course, _señor,_" the butler says, and silently vanishes into the depths of the manor. 

Pepto-Bismol. Dr. Lecter plans to give her the usual pink stuff you give anyone who has an upset stomach. Or maybe the butler is in on it, and 'Pepto-Bismol' is just a code word for Mind Control Drug Number Three. Clarice swallows nervously. The door slams closed, and Clarice notices with mounting dread that the locks on the doors are quite sturdy. Dr. Lecter smiles coolly as he slides the deadbolt home. 

Dr. Lecter leads her to a sitting room and bids her to sit. Susana is nowhere to be seen, and Clarice cannot hear water pipes that might give her some idea of where in this place her daughter is. She blinks. How can she have lived in this house for so long and not know where anything is? 

But that shard will not break so easily. There are greater problems. The sitting room, like the rest of the house, is majestic. Wood-framed artworks loom on the walls. A portrait of her sitting with Dr. Lecter standing over her graces one wall. She is smiling in the portrait. She is not smiling now. 

Acid burns sourly in her stomach as Dr. Lecter looms over her. His hand touches her forehead and his head tilts. It takes all her willpower not to shrink away from the touch. 

"Something _is_ wrong, Clarice," he says, and that same droll touch of patronized amusement is in his voice. "What is it?" He pauses. "You've never needed to hide from me before." 

Her voice is trembling as she speaks and she doesn't like it. Showing weakness around him is _never _a good idea. "I…I don't know," she repeats. "You're the doctor." 

Dr. Lecter nods fractionally as if acknowledging that she will not tell him the truth. "Well, then," he says. "Hopefully you'll feel better for dinner. But if you're off your appetite…I understand." 

The butler returns with a small silver tray in hand. On it is a wine glass one-third full with shockingly pink liquid. Silently he offers it to her. Clarice stares at it and blinks. 

__

He brought me Pepto-Bismol in a fucking crystal wine glass, she thinks dazedly. 

"Thank you," she says, her voice shaky. Dr. Lecter's eyes lie on her. She can almost feel his gaze physically on her skin, as unwanted a touch as a hand on her thigh might be. She stares at the glass for a long moment before taking it. 

The image of Dr. Lecter pinning her down and pouring it down her throat occurs to her. After all, he's had experience in forcing people to do his bidding. Her eyes lock on his and she wonders what else might be in the glass. 

"Is there a problem with the Pepto-Bismol, Maria?" he asks easily. 

She shakes her head. No real way out of this. She closes her eyes and prays to her Lutheran God that what she is about to do is not monumentally stupid. Then she takes the glass and drinks from it. 

The taste is the normal taste of the well-known stomach drug: that is to say, it is godawful and spills into her sinuses. She swallows convulsively and frowns. Lots of drugs are tasteless, she knows that. But she does not keel over unconscious. The butler takes the glass and vanishes with it. 

For a time, they stare at each other like gunslingers. A grandfather clock ticks in the corner, beating time. It is the only sound in the room. It doesn't take long before the ticking is driving her bugshit. Dr. Lecter stands a few feet away from her, watching her from behind his glasses. The pink liquid may be coating her stomach, but it isn't doing anything for her nerves. Then the butler reopens the door and looks in at them. He seems able to sense the tension in the room, and for a moment the smooth butler's mask on his face cracks, but just for a moment. 

"Would _señor _and _señora _prefer that dinner be put away?" he asks calmly. 

Dr. Lecter smiles tightly. Clarice tenses, knowing something is up. He is toying with her, just as he did so long ago when he was locked away behind Plexiglass walls. She can almost see his lips forming the words _Not yet. _

"No, Joachim," he says. "We'll be up shortly." 

Clarice stares at the empty fireplace, a great dark hole in the wall surrounded by black iron hardware. On the floor in front of it is a soft carpet. The image of herself lying naked on it, Hannibal Lecter above her, crosses her mind and makes her shudder. She would like, more than _anything, _for that to be a phantom conjured up by her own tortured mind. But it is too real, too vivid, and too tactile for it to be anything other than a memory shard. Clarice closes her eyes and forces herself to drop the thought. 

The butler nods and closes the door. Dr. Lecter crosses the space between them and touches her arm briefly. 

"Well, Maria?" he prods. 

"All right," Clarice says helplessly, and stands. Part of her still trembles, wanting to get Susana, get out, get free. But another part of her _is _curious to see what her life was like. She does not seem drugged, and she needs to pick the right time. 

_He knows something is up, but he doesn't know what, _Clarice realizes. _If he did, he'd have drugged me right off the bat. He's toying with me because that's what he does. He wouldn't let me be me again if he knew. He'd stop it right off, make me back into…whatever I was before. He still thinks he's in control. Shit, he's probably right. Mr. Butler would probably help him drag me upstairs. Susana isn't here and it was just us. If I can just act calm, act like his…wife…I can get by. For the time being. _

Christ, I hope I'm not telling myself this so I'll believe it. 

"As I said," Dr. Lecter says calmly, "I will not consider it an insult if your appetite is poor." 

The stairs leading to the upper floors of the manse are absurdly wide. Dr. Lecter could have driven his Jaguar up the stairs, if so he wanted, and perhaps had another one beside it, just for fun. The wood is well varnished and glows. Some servant has had their hands full polishing it. 

His hand is always on her upper arm, reminding her that he is in control. Even without that reminder, Clarice knows it. He knows where Susana is; the floorplan of this house is blank to her. It is as if she has never seen it before. 

"Are you up to checking on Susana?" he asks, smiling pleasantly. Yes, Clarice thinks, he is toying with her. 

"Sure," she says, the sibilants hissing over her teeth. 

She stops at the stairs. Another image passes through her mind; the third floor. Their bedroom at the end of the hall. She shivers. Susana's room is at the other end of the hall, facing out over the back of the mansion. Between them some closets, guest rooms, and a bathroom. She continues up the stairs alone. 

_Did you just give me an out, buster? I think you might have. _

Now memories of the home flicker to life like embers blown by her hope. The third floor of the manse is simple in layout. The one central hall that she saw in her mind before is indeed there. She stops at a large white door and her hand freezes. Inside that room is her daughter. But that isn't what has stopped Clarice. 

_She wants you to knock, _a voice advises her. Clarice smiles nervously. Hannibal Lecter may be dangerous, but his daughter seems relatively innocent. She crushes that thought off. _Her _daughter. She can begin coping with who Susana's father is later. Once she's in the US, she'll go to every damn support group for Women Whose Children Were Fathered By Serial Killers that she can find. Her mission for now is the same as it has been since the crossbow string set her free: get herself and her daughter out of Hannibal Lecter's clutches. 

She knocks on the door, twice. Her daughter's voice echoes from behind the door. "Come in." 

Clarice opens the door and blinks for a moment; her daughter's room is about the size her _house _was growing up. Great bay windows and a terrace take up one wall. A large four-poster bed occupies one corner of the room. There is a child-sized couch, desk, and table that make Clarice grin. 

Susana herself sits at a small vanity. In one small hand is a hairbrush. She wears a small silk robe and is engaged in brushing out her hair, observing herself carefully in a lighted mirror. She glances at her mother and smiles pleasantly. 

"Hello, Mama," she says, continuing her grooming. "Is it dinnertime?" 

Clarice swallows. "Yes," she says. _Don't take it personal if I don't eat, kiddo. Mama's a little on edge right now. _

"Okay." Susana puts down the brush and walks over to her closet. Clarice watches her curiously. The door opens to reveal a walk-in closet with dresses hung up neatly on hangers. For a moment Clarice chokes; her daughter's wardrobe is both vaster and far more expensive than her own childhood clothing. Susana waits for a moment before picking out another dress and socks. She closes the door briefly so she can change in privacy, and then emerges fully dressed. 

"Do you ever wear pants?" Clarice asks curiously. 

Susana wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. "I don't wear pants," she says, as if the very idea is laughable. "I'm a _girl." _

"I wear pants," Clarice points out. 

Puzzlement crosses the little girl's face. "No, you don't," she protests. "You wear dresses like me." 

A vague distaste crosses Clarice's face. _So he didn't like me in pants. Just part of the dress-her-up routine. Balls. It doesn't matter. _Once Susana and she are both safe, she can worry about introducing the girl to the joys of trousers later. Right up there with signing up for the support groups. 

Does this house have servants' stairs? Closing her eyes and forcing it to come actually helps. Score one for Clarice. Yes, at the one end of the hall near their room. The lower-ranking stairs are just fine for Clarice. So long as they get her to the ground – and the car – quickly, the servants' stairs will do just as well as the master's stairs. 

"C'mon, now," Clarice directs her daughter, and holds out her hand. Susana offers it and takes it readily enough. She seems surprised when Clarice does not walk to the main stairs, but she doesn't argue. Thank God for small favors. 

_Okay. Got my purse. Got my car keys. Out the door and to the car and haul ass. I can explain it to Susana later. _

Calmly, Clarice Starling opens the door. The servants' stairs are dimly lit, but it is enough. Clarice heads down to the landing. Adrenalin is pumping through her, giving her strength to fight the monster. Her stupid heeled shoes make more noise on the stairs than she would like, but she has her daughter and she knows what is going to happen next. Susana obediently goes down the stairs with her. 

_American embassy or Uruguay? The border isn't that far away, and I'll bet Jeeves the Argentine Butler keeps the cars gassed up. Put it off. Get out, that's what matters. There's the landing. Down to the first floor and good-bye Hannibal, it's been fun, but you'll need to find some other fluff for now. I'm taking Susana. You can go after me in court for visitation rights. _

Then she comes face to face with Dr. Hannibal Lecter, standing before her in the dim light like a shadow given malevolent substance, and she gasps. His maroon eyes gleam at her and he smiles. 

"Ladies," he says. "Come, please. It's dinner time." 

__


	5. Bedtime Story

                _Okay.  Okay.  He knew you'd take the servants' stairs.  Doesn't mean Jack Shit, Starling.  It's still cool.  You're still in the game.  _

Those thoughts spin across the fear coating Clarice's mind.  She stares blankly at him for several moments.  Dr. Lecter reaches down and picks up his daughter unbidden, plucking her from Clarice grasp with the ease of a master thief.  She is delighted and puts her arms around her father, resting her head on his shoulder and smiling at her mother.  Sparks dance in her maroon eyes.    

                Clarice feels vaguely sick.  A faint flicker of hope, extinguished in a second.  And again, Susana just _has to illustrate her adoration for her father.  The sight of her daughter in Hannibal Lecter's arms is disenheartening and terrifying.  _

                Dr. Lecter shifts the girl to his one side and takes Clarice's hand with the other.  That same cold grin twists his lips as his hand closes on hers.  It isn't obvious enough to be a smirk.  A smirk would be rude.  This is his left hand, his bad hand.  Yet it feels just as strong as the other.  There may be a bit of stiffness, but it is not anything she can sense with her own nerves and skin.  It feels hard and unforgiving, like iron.  He could crush the bones of her hand like crushing a wounded bird, if he wanted to.  

                But physical torture is not on the menu for today.  Dr. Lecter leads her to a table set for three.  Fine china gleams on the table; covered chafing dishes help to ensure that the meal remains hot.  Susana slides down her father's hip, takes a moment to tug at her dress to ensure it has not ridden up, and takes her own seat unbidden. 

                Dr. Lecter leads Clarice to her chair.  For a moment she expects him to shackle her to the chair, drug her, do _something.  Instead he simply sits her down and pushes her chair in.  How does he expect her to just stay there?  Clarice's eyes narrow in suspicion.  _

                _You still think I'm your little brainless doll, she thinks.  _Surprise.  __

Dr. Lecter lifts the top of one covered plate.  A puff of steam arises from the plate.  Clarice tenses, illogically sure that the dish below will be of human origin.  It occurs to her that the last meal with Dr. Lecter she has any memory of at all is the dinner with Paul Krendler as guest and meal both.  The thought makes her shudder.  

                She stares at Susana for a moment.  The little girl has good table manners; she sits up straight and doesn't play with her silverware.  It occurs to Clarice that she has most likely eaten a meal with this little girl every day since her birth, and she remembers not so much as a single one.  Her eyes are cast resentfully back at Dr. Lecter for a heartbeat.  Then she remembers that she must cover her tracks.  

                Finely sliced strips of meat lie on the serving platter.  Deftly, Dr. Lecter takes a fork and serves first his daughter.  He looks at Clarice piercingly.  

                "Are you hungry, Maria?"  

                _The name.  What does that mean?  He calls me Maria when someone else is around, even Susana.  He calls me Clarice only when we're alone.  That means…_

It takes a moment to come.  Then neurons skip over and the connection is made.  _It means Susana doesn't know who we really are.  She thinks my name is Maria and his name is…_ Another shard breaks.  _Alonso.  She thinks his name is Alonso Alvarez.  She doesn't know.  _

"Just one, please," she whispers.  

                Dr. Lecter nods.  He forks over one strip onto her plate.  It is soaked in rich sauce.  The smell is tempting and meaty.  Then he serves himself.  After that comes some mixed vegetables, and Clarice passes on that.  

                He pours juice for Susana and wine for himself and Clarice.  Then he lifts a white china teapot and pours some tea into Clarice's teacup.  He takes none for himself.  Clarice watches him serve, still feeling nerves eat at her.  

                "That tea is supposed to be calming for upset stomachs," he says mildly.  "Try it." 

                _If you think for one goddam instant I am drinking that tea, you have another thing coming, buster.  _

For a few moments things are quiet.  Susana sets to eating.  Her appetite is good and she makes progress enough to earn a compliment from Dr. Lecter.  She beams under this praise in a manner that makes Clarice sourly jealous.  She picks at her food.  The meat is rich and good, but she is profoundly not hungry.  

                "So," Dr. Lecter says, and his voice mimics a loving father's so perfectly Clarice is almost fooled.  "What did you do at the park today?"  

                Clarice does not answer.  She simply stares at her tea.  Susana puts her fork down and laces her fingers.  

                "We played on the swings," she recites.  "And we rode the see-saw and the slide too."  

                Dr. Lecter chuckles.  "Did you see any friends there?" he asks.  His voice is pleasant.  He observes his daughter with an amused mien.  

                "I saw Clara," Susana says promptly.  "We played for a little bit.  Mama and Clara's mama talked for a while."  

                Clarice watches her daughter.  She doesn't have the faintest idea what her daughter is talking about.  For a moment she is furiously angry again.  Who was he to take all that from her?  Her daughter's friend, her daughter's friends mother.   A pleasant chat between two mothers.   Even _that he had taken away from her.  _

                "What else happened?" Dr. Lecter asks his daughter curiously.  

                Their daughter details the day that they'd had at the park.  "We played a lot.  Then we got ice cream.  And that was when mama got sick."  

                Dr. Lecter tilts his head and stares at his daughter with interest.  "Was there anything around you when your mama got sick?  Anything unusual?"  he asks.  

                Clarice's heart leaps.  Has he found her out?  

                "We saw people shooting arrows," Susana says eagerly.  

                Dr. Lecter's silver fork freezes midway between his dinner plate and his mouth.  For a moment, a sly smile crosses his lips like that of a wolf who has spotted his prey.  A faint spark appears in the depths of his maroon eyes and is immediately sucked into the dark.  

                "Arrows," he observes.

                "Uh-huh," Susana says happily.  "They were shooting arrows like Robin Hood.  Into targets."   She mimics the gesture of an archer, just in case her father is too dull to realize otherwise.  He simply nods, regarding the gesture as cute.

                "I see."  

                Clarice Starling feels a ball of ice suddenly form in her stomach.  The crazed bastard has what he wants.  He knows.  _He knows.  _

                What should she do?  She can rise and flee before he can reach her.  But that will leave Susana in his grasp.  All the same, maybe she can reach the authorities and get Susana that way.  But a nauseated hand touches the inside of her throat, and another image occurs to her.  She sees herself, standing in the driveway of this house.  Police cars line the street, their red lights flickering and lighting up the expensive homes.  Some FBI personnel are there, even though she doubts they could get down here that fast.  

                A uniformed man comes out of the house.  _I am sorry, _he says to her.  _The servants are here, but Dr. Lecter and the little girl are not.  The butler says there was an emergency.  _

She _cannot _let that happen.  This little girl may be a stranger, but she is Clarice's daughter nonetheless.  She knows what will happen if Dr. Lecter disappears with her.    The world is a big, big place, and she could spend her entire life searching for her daughter.  

                "Susana, dear," Dr. Lecter says, "it is time for bed."  He pushes back his chair and rises.  Susana appears displeased at having to go to bed, but doesn't protest his decision.  He pads it by smiling patiently at her.  "I shall tuck you in.  Come along."  

                That appears to mollify her enough that she goes along without complaint.  At the door, Dr. Lecter turns back.  He smiles.  

                "I'll just be a moment," he says.  "Then…we can talk."  Then he is gone, his hand in his daughter's.  

                Clarice sits in the dining room, waiting.  The old saying "on pins and needles" was never so apt as now, she thinks.  Her arms and legs thrum with nervous energy.  She can feel her guts pricked with invisible sharp needles, as if some cruel surgeon was operating on her without benefit of anesthesia.   Glancing down at the floor indicates expensive Berber carpet.  In a small, mean gesture, Clarice pours the tea on the floor, under the table so he will not see.  

                _Take that, Mr. I-love-expensive-carpet.  I am not lost yet.  I'll fight you and I will win.  _ 

                A click comes from the wall.  Clarice glances at it.  The house is large, and there is an intercom system so that people could communicate.  His voice comes from it.  

                She tenses.  This is not accidental; it is deliberate.  He wants her to hear what he is going to tell the little girl.  For now, Clarice stays put.  She will be the silent witness he wants her to be.  It serves her own purposes to do so.  

                "All right, Susana," he says, "it is time for bed."  

                "But I'm not tired," Susana objects.  The speaker is good quality and both voices are reproduced faithfully.  The distortion levels are low enough to impress former technical agent Starling.

                He is not fazed.  "Then you may read quietly in bed," he says.  "Remember, your mother is sick."  

                A moment's pause.  Clarice gets the idea that the girl would have protested further if she had been the one mandating bedtime.  For him, she will not.    

                "Will you tell me a story first, papa?" Susana coaxes.  

                _Oooogh.  You do **not **want Hannibal Lecter telling you bedtime stories, Clarice thinks. _

                "Very well," Hannibal Lecter says.  "First, get into bed."  The rustling of bedcovers follows.  Clarice finds herself glued to the speaker.  Just what _would _a man like him tell a child?  

                "Once upon a time," Dr. Lecter says, "there was…a bird.  And this bird was unhappy."  

                "Why was the bird unhappy?"  Susana asks, her voice high and clear.  

                "When the bird was just a little baby bird," Dr. Lecter explains, "she saw a lamb…crying.  The bird wanted to help the lamb, but she was too small.  Her wings were not strong enough.  There was nothing she could do."  

                "Then that wasn't the little bird's fault," Susana says with the surety of a little girl's sense of justice.  

                "Quite true.  Nonetheless, the bird never forgot the lamb, and she was not happy.  In order to make herself feel better, she tried to go out in the world and do good and help people.  She thought that it would make her happy…but it didn't.  No matter who she helps, there were so many more, and nothing quite took away the crying lamb from her memory."  

                Clarice's arms tense and her fingers clench, anxious for the old friendship of her .45.  Her lips skin back from her teeth.  

                _You sick bastard.  _

                "But she should have known it wasn't her fault," Susana observes.  

                "The bird didn't see things that clearly," Dr. Lecter answers.  "The bird wants so very badly to help people.  There were people who did not like the bird, and so they got in her way.  There were others who sought to take advantage of the bird, and they used her for their own purposes.  They told her to do things that they told her were good, but in actuality they only helped themselves by fooling her."  

                "That was _mean," _Susana objects. 

                "Quite so.  One day, an evil troll kidnapped a princess."  

                "Was she a pretty princess?" Susana wants to know.  

                "Actually, she was a big girl.  Roomy.  And her face wasn't really that attractive, if you ask me."   

"Oh."  Susana sounds miffed, as if _all _princesses were supposed to be pretty.  

"The bird wanted to help the princess.  Someone told the bird that there was an old, evil monster who knew the troll's secret weakness.  The monster lived in a cage at the bottom of a dungeon.  They said that the old monster was _very _very dangerous.  He supposedly ate people up when he was angry with them.  He chopped them into pieces and made them into gourmet meals which he served to his friends."  

                Susana gasps.  Clarice can almost see her eyes wide with fear.  God knows _hers are.  _

                "So the bird flew down to the dungeon to talk with the monster," Dr. Lecter goes on.  "The monster was not so evil as people thought him to be.  He was interested in the bird, and why she sought to do good when it did not make her happy.  So he traded with her.  He told her of his knowledge of the evil troll and she told him about herself." 

                "The monster was _frightfully _smart, and the people who kept the monster in the cage were…not so smart as they believed themselves to be."  Clarice can almost see the smug smile on his face, and knows it will go over Susana's head like a 747.  "In trying to help the…knights of the kingdom defeat the evil troll and rescue the princess, the monster was able to escape from the dungeon.  Then he went off to live in faraway lands.  You see, the monster would have been perfectly willing to live in peace, had he been left alone."  

                "So was he a _good _monster?"  Susana sounds puzzled.  At the age of five, the concept of a good monster was something she has trouble with.  Clarice doesn't blame her; she doesn't quite grasp the idea either and she's forty-four.  And Dr. Lecter is _certainly _not good.  

                "Perhaps not good, but capable of good.  Capable of stopping himself from doing the horrible things he had once done.  The monster felt that he had been punished enough.  If he was left alone he would leave others alone."  

                "The monster continued to live in faraway lands, learning about history and other things that he held dear.  But he never quite forgot the bird.  He knew the bird was still out there, fruitlessly trying to make herself happy.  An evil prince who did not like the monster tried to capture him and do bad things to him.  He believed he had a grievance against the monster, you see."  

                "What's a grievance?" Susana asks.  

                "He thought the monster had done him wrong, so he intended to do _horrible things to the first monster," Dr. Lecter explains.  "But the bird was there for him as she had been for so many others.  She knew that even a monster should not be treated so.  She saved the monster.  However, the evil prince's men shot the bird with a magic arrow that put her to sleep."  _

                "Was she all right?"  Susana asks, sounding alarmed.  

                "Oh, yes.  The monster was grateful to her for saving him, even though gratitude was not something he commonly shows.  He carried the bird from the evil prince's kingdom and brought her to his lair."  

                "He didn't eat her, did he?" Susana asks anxiously.  Clarice tenses.  

                "No, no," Dr. Lecter assures his daughter.   "He knew what the bird did not know.  He knew that the bird's quest to stop the crying of the lamb was fruitless.  That she could never succeed.  That she would always be unhappy, and that her enemies would ensure her failure.  It was sad, but that was the truth.  So the monster…the monster cast a magic spell on the bird.   He took away the things that made her sad, and he made her realize that what matters most was not helping other people; what matters most was making herself happy."  

                "So was the bird happy?" Susana asks, sounding interests.  

                "Oh yes, she was.  She forgot certain things as the result of the spell.  She did not remember the lamb crying.  She did not remember other things that had helps to make her sad.  As a result, she was happy.  The monster took her to a distant land and…turned himself into a handsome prince."  

                _You may look good in a tux, buddy, Clarice thinks coldly, _but you are by no means a handsome prince.  _But she cannot move now.  Susana is the prize, and he has her for right now.  _

"Then the monster-prince and the bird lived together for years," Dr. Lecter continues, "and they were very, very happy.  The bird did not think about things that made her sad.  She was happy, and she'd already done more than most people _ever did for others, so all was well.  They had a little girl, just like you."  _

                Susana, old enough to grasp certain elements of biology, sounds dubious.  "How could a monster and a bird have a little girl together?" she asks.  "That doesn't make sense."  

                Dr. Lecter appears not to have expected the question.  "Er, it was magic," he says offhandedly.   "So for years, the bird was happy.  But then…an accident happens.  The bird began to think of things she should not have.  She began to think the monster _was _still a monster.  She began to be…unhappy again, and planned to leave the monster and take the little girl away and never see him again."   His tone makes it clear that that was the end of the story.  "Good night, Susana."   

                The mattress creaks as Susana sits up.  "That's awful," she protests.   Clarice can see her displeased expression in her mind's eye: small brow furrowed, eyes lit with protest, arms folded.  It is an expression she knows herself all too well.  "That's not the ending, is it?  The bird should be happy.  That's not a happy ending, papa."  

                Dr. Lecter sounds amused, the way Clarice suspects he normally is with his daughter.  It seems that Susana is the apple of his eye.   "Then what ending would you like to see?" he asks.  

                "I think the monster should cast the spell again and make the bird happy," Susana declares. 

                A cold chuckle emits from the intercom speaker.  He _knows _she has been listening; this had all been for her benefit.  Clarice feels icy needles probing at her gut.  

                "I think that would be a _splendid _ending, Susana," Dr. Lecter says.  His voice was amused and pleased.  Clarice swallows and looks around.  

                _I have to get out of here.  No, wait.  I have to get Susana.  Shit.  There's a ton of house I can keep between him and me.  And I have to.  No arguments, no bullshit.  I **have** to win this one. Please God, just let me have my daughter.    _

"Good night, Susana.  Sleep tight."  _Click _of the intercom.  Then another _click _as Dr. Lecter turns on the intercom in the upstairs hallway. A few soft electronic beeps sound.  A synthesized female voice advises both of them.

"Burglar alarm activated," it says.  

 Then his voice came from the speakers, cool and collected and amused.  

                "So," he says.  "How did you like the bedtime story…,"  She can picture his lips, pursing in a grin, close enough to the intercom so that she will hear but Susana will not.  His tone betrays amusement.  A sound like a snake's hiss as he pulls in air.    Slim lips slip over his teeth as he finishes his sentence.  

"…,Special Agent Starling?"    


	6. Duel

                Clarice Starling stands staring at a speaker, her eyes wide.  Her heart races.  Blood hammers in her ears.  Dr. Lecter is one floor above her, but he is coming.  

                In her years seeing ghettos over a shotgun barrel, Clarice has learned well.  There are times in the field that you know your objective – what the goal of the op is.  What is not always so clear is your next move.  You know what the end task is, but how to get there is often fluid and changing.  In such a circumstance, given no other option, you move your ass when you need to.  You do so cool-headedly and sizing up the situation.  But if running around like a beheaded chicken can get you killed, so can standing around with your thumb up your ass when the gunplay starts. 

                He knows where she is.  She does not.  It is time to deprive him of that advantage.  Clarice bends down and yanks at the stupid high-heeled shoes; they will get in her way and their sound on the stairs will give her away.  The straps are tiny and hard to unbuckle and she ends up yanking the second one off, breaking the strap.  It doesn't matter.  

                _Flat shoes would help, _she thinks, _but I'll get them when I have time.  _

Clarice moves swiftly, leaving the dining room for a sitting room upstairs.  A large television dominates a corner of the room.  A couch a few feet away offers television watchers a comfortable place to rest.  DVD's stand like soldiers in a rack, a pristine set of right angles.  The ones on the bottom row are children's movies.   The only sound in the room is the larruping of her own heart and the gasping of her own breath.  Her head whips back and forth.  

                 Dr. Lecter is somewhere in this house with her and he plans to erase her memory.  Clarice has already lost so much.  Eleven years of her life.  Her daughter's first years.  Someone else has existed in her place all that time.   Some alternate personality, constructed to order by Dr. Lecter.  Susana's birth, her first words, her first steps.   All those milestones locked away from her, and given instead to some mindless ditz created by and for Dr. Lecter.   

                She will get them back.  Every one.  But for now she has to evade him.  Her list of objectives seems so long.  His is simple: recapture her.  For a moment she wants to scream with frustration.  

                _Think, goddammit, _she tells herself.  _What do you need right now, Clarice?  Susana is safe.  He won't hurt his own daughter.  Think of now.  What do you need now?  _

Shoes would help.  Fighting barefoot is a pain in the ass.  They'd help, but they weren't _necessary.  _No, what she needs now is a weapon.  Something that will give her an edge on him.  

                Clarice's eyes flick back and forth.  Nothing in this room that will serve as a weapon; she can't fight him with a DVD of _Muppet Treasure Island.  _Odd that he even lets his daughter have that.  How could a man like Hannibal Lecter deal with Muppets?  

                There is no time for fucking around; otherwise he will find her and make her into his little Muppet again: soft, unassuming, and controlled utterly by him.  She moves to the stairs and pauses.  Is there the creak of a riser, maybe?  The sound of his breathing?  Her ears strain for sound, seeking it out as a bat seeks its own radar.  Yes?  No?  Her own breath catches in her lungs for one, two, three beats.  No.  

                Yes, ditching the heels was a good idea; her feet are silent on the stairs as she descends.  _Slap-slap-slap _on the risers, and she is at the ground floor of the mansion.  She pauses again and listens.  No sound.  Good deal.  

                Then there is a metallic click.  The intercom again; she recognizes it.  Her blood chills as he speaks.  

                "Hello, Clarice," he says.  A chuckle escapes him.  "Awake again after all these years?  So tell me. How does your life strike you?"  

                Her lips twist.  Anger inflames her face.  _You son of a bitch, this isn't **my **life, it's the life of the…slave doll you made me into. _

The part of her that is still an FBI agent, even after all these years, does her a great favor by catching her lower lip between her teeth and seering down hard until she can taste her own blood.  

                _He's trying to freak you out, _that part of her mind tells her.  _He's trying to **flush **you out, too.  He wants to make you mad, to scream, to do something so he can find you. Don't let him.  _

"I'm not sure where you are, Clarice, so I've directed this message to all the intercom units in the house," Dr. Lecter admits, as if unconsciously verifying her inner Brigham.  "I took the liberty of turning the intercom in Susana's room off.  A small child shouldn't see her parents fight, hmmm?"  

                _Tap, tap, tap.  _Clarice can hear his footsteps on a wooden floor somewhere in the house.  He is moving.  After a moment, she starts too.  Dr. Lecter is rumored not to lie, and the rumor holds true; wherever she goes, there is a speaker active speaking to her in his voice.  

                "Why not give in, Clarice?  It's so much easier when you don't fight."  

                She dodges around a hallway, a flickering shadow in the midst of shadows.  Should she turn off the light?  Where the hell is the kitchen?  Dr. Lecter's kitchen will almost assuredly have knives; he is a knife aficionado.  Dr. Lecter likes his knives. 

                A locked room.  She doesn't try to force the door, just goes on to the next one.  

                "You didn't fight me before, Clarice.   You welcomed it.  Your life is here."  __

_                **Was **here, _Clarice Starling thinks viciously.  

                "Your daughter needs you, Clarice.  How fitting that she was the first thing you saw.  Your own child, Clarice.  You _never _would have had a child in your prior life.  Do you recall when she was born?  _I _do."  

                _You took that away from me, you…you cemetery mink, _she thinks.  If he intends to make her angry, he has succeeded.  Anger colors her face with red fingers and makes her heart beat faster.  If he thinks she will do something stupid, he is wrong.  She will control herself.  She knows his game.  

                "You cried when they first put her in your arms, Clarice.  You cried and said she was the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen in your entire life."  His voice shifts from the same cold, mocking tone he normally uses.  The sham emotion in his voice is quite good, but it is a sham.  

                "Wasn't she just what you'd always wanted, Clarice?  Wasn't _this _just what you'd always wanted?  You were happy.  So very happy.  The lambs were silent for eleven years, Clarice."  

                _I may have been happy, but I wasn't Clarice, _she thinks in response.  Now she is into the parlor, and she stops.  Something tells her to wait.  There is something here.  Something tells Clarice that there is something in the room that she can use.  

                "You and _I _were happy," he continues.  The speaker is higher on the wall here, and for a moment it seems like the voice of God.  "Come, Clarice.  Do you not think it likely you told me all sorts of things that you don't remember now?  You have…no secrets from me."  A cold chuckle.  Clarice waits, frustrated, knowing there is something in this room that she needs, but not _what.  _

"What did you have in mind, Clarice?" the voice is both mocking and coaxing from the white-grilled speaker.  "Were you going to take my daughter in your arms and fly away to Washington?  Were you going to get a babysitter to watch Susana and go into Jack Crawford's office and say 'Hi, I'm sorry I was eleven years late for work?'  It won't do.  They won't accept you back, Clarice.  They only grudgingly accepted you the first time.  Your life as you knew it is over.  You must accept that."  

                _The curtain.  _Another shard.  About damn time, too.  The curtain is off-white and hangs to the floor; a veritable bridal dress for a window.  Clarice pushes it out of the way.  There.  Leaning in the corner.  Clarice reaches down and lifts up  a police side-handle baton.  The original PR-24, made with pride by the Monadnock company.  They have made the same side-handle baton for twenty years.  _Actually, thirty, _Clarice thinks.   Dr. Lecter is familiar with these batons; he used one in Memphis to beat a prison guard to death.  The Monadnock company prides itself on being pro-law enforcement and has refused to ask Dr. Lecter for a celebrity endorsement.  Clarice takes it out and looks at it.  A single piece of strong black polycarbonate, made for a cop to use in a fight and stake his life on.  No one has ever made them better. 

                Clarice lifts the baton with a cold smile on her own face.  She is no stranger to violence.  If Dr. Lecter thinks she will swoon into his arms, trembling and fearful, he is going to get a big old surprise.  Perhaps the Barbie-doll personality he created would do that, but not Clarice.  She is back and she will fight.  

                And if Dr. Lecter doesn't know that the most dangerous creature in the world is a mother whose children are threatened, he's about to find that out _real _quick.  

                As the silence grows over Dr. Lecter's words, Clarice realizes that she has been here before.  Not this house; that is merely the scenery.  She has been here before, down in the darkness where civilization is a cynical joke and the concept of the rule of law is worthy of snorts and derision.   Be it a ghetto in D.C., pretty much the entire damn city of Newark, or a mansion in Buenos Aires, it is the same darkness, the same land of shadow and mayhem.   Down here in the shadowlands, you either move or you don't, you either strike or you don't, and if you make the wrong choice you can pay with your life.   Clarice knows it well.  Does he?  She isn't so sure he does.  

                That doesn't mean he can't piss her off, or scare the piss out of her, though.  

                She pauses.  Is that a sound behind her?  She isn't sure.  It is not repeated. The speaker clicks to life again.  Clarice raises the baton to shoulder height, just in case he is nearby.  

                "Clarice, you're right back to where you started," he says.  "Fighting a battle you can't possibly win.  Fruitlessly struggling to save a lamb that died thirty years ago. Why take up that cross again?  Unnecessary suffering isn't heroism; it's masochism.  Since you came to be with me, you were happy.  You didn't worry about such things any more.  Why start again?  I assure you, you've done more than your share for the rest of the teeming insectoid mass of humanity – _none _of whom appreciate your sacrifices."  

                A creak of wing tips on wood.  Clarice whirls and tenses.  The baton whistles through the air.   But Hannibal Lecter is not there; his voice comes only from the speaker.  If he were close enough to get her she would have heard him.  Wherever he is, she can picture him: head tilted, waiting to see if his words have struck home.  After a few moments, he goes on to another tack.  

                "You're a work of art naked, Clarice.  One that rivals the finest sculptures Michelangelo ever sought to create."  Another cool chuckle, like bones rattling down the side of a cliff.  "Trust me, Clarice…_I _know.  Did you remember the sitting room?  The fireplace?  That should bring back some memories.   That's where Susana was conceived.  Do you remember?  I do."   His voice drops down to a gaunt whisper, barely enough to be picked up by the intercom's microphone.  "We'd gone to the opera, and when we got back we tore at each other like animals, base in our needs and our hungers.  I'm afraid I broke the zipper on your dress getting it off you, and you tore my shirt straight down the back.  But we didn't care then, did we?" She hears him hiss in air, sucking it over his tongue to taste it.  Shame and anger war on her face.  Yes, the monster has known her even in the biblical sense.  Susana's existence is proof of that.  

"Your hair was like fire, Clarice, and your lips like silk, and when we were done you'd clawed my back bloody…and when we were done, you were pregnant."

                The reminder sends another pulse of red-white rage through her, but she clamps down on it mercilessly.  Her fingers grip the baton until they are mottled white, but she does not do what he wants, which is to lose her head.  Yet his words cut her and she has to physically force herself to maintain control.  

"Come out, come out, Clarice.  You can't escape the house.  The burglar alarm will give you away.  You _know _I'll find you eventually.  You have no secrets from me, neither psychological nor physical.  Just give in.  It's much easier that way."  

                Her face clenches and angry tears well in her eyes.  _Yes, all right, you…you did what did.  You don't have to remind me of it.  _

Footsteps.  This time they are not from the speaker.  Clarice tenses and looks around.  Where is he?  Her ears pick up the sound of an inhaled breath.  

                "You're close," he says.  "I can smell your perfume, Clarice.  _L'air du temps._  Your favorite."  The air, not the speaker, carries his voice to her.  Clarice clamps her lips together and grits her teeth.  This is it.  Showtime.  If she wins, she will be free.  If he wins…she won't be around to think about it.  She will be replaced by the slave doll she once was.  

                _But that's not going to happen, is it, Clarice?  _She chokes up on the baton and firms up her grip.  The black polycarbonate is hypnotically shiny.  The light from overhead dances along its glossy service.  _Quit it.  Concentrate on your job, dammit.  _

                A shadow moves on the floor in front of her.  Clarice moves swiftly to flatten herself against the wall by the door.  She raises the baton to shoulder height.   Has he seen her?  Her pulse pounds in her ears as she waits.  The shadow grows longer and she can hear his breathing.  It is calm.  He isn't moving fast, and Clarice finds herself thinking he does not know she is there.   She is in cover, behind the door.  

                _You're smart but not perfect.  Just a little closer.  Once you get a little bit closer…._

In her mind she choreographs what will happen.  He will come through the doorway.  She will move out from behind the door where she is camouflaged.  Then she will bring the baton down on Dr. Hannibal Lecter's skull with everything she has.  

                She takes a deep breath and holds it.  The shadow lengthens further and forms into the shape of a man.  His back is to her; she can see the side of his head and his small, delicately shaped ear.  His hair is neatly cut.  It still resembles a pelt, and Clarice thinks it is dyed.   Will she have to kill him?  She doesn't know.   For now she has no choice but to fight.  The alternative is the worst sort of murder:  her body will live with a mindless, grinning doll-mind in it, while everything that she is will sleep.  

                "Where are you, Clarice?" Dr. Lecter asks.  

                Now is the time.  For herself.  For her daughter.  For the person she was, even if she can't be that person anymore.  Now is the time.  

Clarice steps forward and brings the baton down with all of her strength.  


	7. Victory

                Dr. Lecter whirls as Clarice brings the baton down.  She knows how to fight, and she follows through, bringing it down with everything she's got.  This is her chance.  He knows something is up; his reflexes are inhumanly quick.  

                But for once, luck is on Clarice's side.  The baton strikes Dr. Lecter just above the ear.  Clarice follows through, putting every ounce of her body weight behind it.  There is a meaty _thud _as she hits home.  Her mouth sets firmly, her lips a thin line.  This is not pleasant for her; she is deadly serious.  This is her life.  

                Dr. Lecter staggers.  He does not fall.  Knocking someone out with one blow is largely the realm of movies and fantasy.  Clarice knows better.  Here in the shadowlands, when you hit someone there isn't any nice way to do it, so once you do it, you don't stop until they are down.  He spins to meet her, but her first blow has struck home and struck hard.  She does not waste her advantage.  

                Moving quickly, Clarice brings the baton down again on his temple.  Another muted _whock _sounds in the air.  His eyes are glaring at her, his face frozen in a snarl.  Perhaps now he realizes that she is a worthy adversary.  His Barbie doll to dress up in pretty clothes is gone; what is here is the warrior he once called her, and she will fight him as she has fought any other felon.  

                His hand reaches out to grab her wrists.  A thin line appears at the side of his head where she struck him, and crimson begins to well in the edges.   Hannibal Lecter may be regarded by many as _other, _the monster, something not human.  Clarice now knows that he bleeds like any other man.  She has only one more blow coming to her, and she takes it with the same cool viciousness that has saved her life in gun battles with Crips.  

                Clarice Starling backhands the man she has lived with for the past eleven years with the baton.  Another full-force blow, and the job is done.  His maroon eyes roll up in his head, and his lunge forward turns into a slow keel that leads him to the floor.  His body lands with an undignified thump.  Once there, he lies prone and does not move.  

                Her eyes are wide and her body fueled with panicky strength.  Clarice raises the baton high again.  His blood is splattered on her face.  More blood from his wounds begins to seep into the carpet.  Her mouth trembles.  He is helpless at her feet, much as she was helpless in his grasp for all those years. She has done something no one has done, to her knowledge:  she has won a fight with Hannibal Lecter.  One final blow will end the monster's reign.  

                _He's her father.  ___

Where that thought comes from she is not sure.  But she stops, holding the baton high overhead, staying the deathblow.  She does not want to kill a man lying unconscious at her feet.  She particularly does not want to kill the father of her daughter.  

                For a moment Clarice Starling thinks about what would happen if she did.  Dr. Lecter might have had no compunction about withholding the truth about his origin from his daughter.  But Clarice knows she could not hide it if she killed him.  She could live with it herself, she supposed; she'd killed before.  When you came down to it, she has killed more people than Dr. Lecter.  

                But how could she possibly live with her little girl she'd killed her father?  Killed him not on the field of battle, but as he lay unconscious at her feet?  That sort of secret would eat at her, leach at her insides like acid.  She's seen both regular cops and FBI agents eaten up over a previous shooting.  They used to teach cops:  _Don't shoot or the bullet will hurt you worse.  _

She would have always told people that her killings didn't bother her.  In some ways they didn't; she never felt the urge to crawl into a whiskey bottle over them.  She'd always made sure that there was no other way at hand; she hadn't just shot people for the fun of it.  Even now, knowing what he has done, knowing what he has done to _her_, she doesn't want to kill him. 

                Her head cranes back and forth, looking for someplace to put him.  Glancing through the open doorways of the mansion does not reveal much.  She can make out the kitchen and decides to have a look there.  Leaving him there is not something she wants to do, but not even _he _can come to without a sound.  If he starts grunting and groaning and moving, she'll hit him again until he stops.  

                The kitchen is far larger than anything she ever imagined.  Her parents' original house was only slightly larger than this.  Black pots and pans hang from wrought-iron racks attached to the ceiling, arranged orderly by size.  They gleam with the allure of nonstick coating.    An expensive gas stove made of gleaming stainless steel rules over one corner of the kitchen.  The top is burnished black, reminding her absurdly of the baton.  The kitchen speaks of expense and order; the kitchen of a man who likes cooking and likes good cooking equipment.

 The kitchen has a walk-in freezer, and Clarice finds herself staring at it.  It, like the rest of  Dr. Lecter's kitchen is the best.  There are shelving units inside it stocked with packages of meat wrapped in white paper and other things she doesn't bother to identify now.  

                The handle of the freezer is only on one side; the outside.  Someone locked in can be safely held for a while.  Will he figure out a way to open it?  Sure he will.  The man figured out how to escape custody with a freaking ballpoint pen.   But with some pleasure she realizes that's just fine.  If she can slow him down for a few hours, even perhaps the rest of the night, that is all she needs.  It is cold in the freezer and her breath plumes.  She turns it down a bit.  He'll be cold and uncomfortable, but not enough to freeze.  

                She returns and grabs Dr. Lecter by the arms.  To haul him through the house is more work than she imagined.  Apparently the Barbie-doll personality he constructed for her did not think much of exercising.  Her muscles groan and complain as she drags him, but she is resolute.  

                The metal door slams shut.    Clarice runs her hands through her hair and forces herself to think.  She needs some information.  She needs it _now, _too.  She needs money.  She needs passports for herself and Susana.  She needs to put miles between herself and this house, this life, and this man.  

                The things she needs are here in this house.  She knows Dr. Lecter well.  Has he changed his stripes _that _much in eleven years?  It's doubtful.  Somewhere in this house are papers and money.  The money will be cash, in twenties, fifties, and hundreds.  Large enough that he will be able to carry a pretty healthy chunk of change on his person, small enough that breaking the bills will not draw attention.   The identities will be long established and will look excellent.  

                Dr. Lecter's identities in the United States were all American identities; there was no reason for him to involve himself with the INS when he did not have to.  Here in South America, things are different.  Clarice does not think that the continent has cleaned itself up during her eleven-year slumber.  Setting up false identities here has always been easy.  They'd done enough tracking of drug kingpins to know that.  

                They _have _to be here in the house.  There may be some other hiding place.  In fact, there almost assuredly is.  But in the house itself will be a few easy-to-access identities, in case Dr. Lecter needed to leave the house quickly.  

                She closes her eyes and forces herself to think.  Dr. Lecter would have told her where one was, at the least.  Perhaps there are more she doesn't know about; that wouldn't surprise the shit out of her either.  But there is at least one and maybe more.   She just needs to remember.  

                It sounds _so _easy. 

                She forces herself to think.  Nothing comes.  What about screwing the fake identity and just giving herself up?  She ponders the idea for a moment and glances in the steel door that confines Dr. Lecter.  It reminds her of the first time she ever met him, down low in the dungeon depths, that meeting that began with pleasant greetings and ended with a madman's semen on her cheek.  

                _Quit it with the nostalgia, _she tells herself, and walks away from the freezer.  For a moment she thinks of her office.  Isn't that…sort of obvious?  It doesn't seem likely for him.  

                All the same, it's worth checking out.  She heads upstairs, not knowing where to go.  Directions come seemingly from nowhere; faint words whispered in her mind as if from the bottom of Buffalo Bill's pit.  _Second floor…third door on the right…_

Her office.  For a moment she stares at it blankly.  This room bears the clear stamp of her presence.  There are pictures of her and Dr. Lecter, the type shot by _paparazzi.  _There are a few pictures of her with her daughter framed on the walls.  The background appears to be a yacht club.  Behind Susana's smiling face there are lines and poles she connects with sailboats.  Behind them are the waters of the south Atlantic.  

                There are awards on the wall, too.  It seems that her pleasant little doll personality was into charity.  The International Red Cross, the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (_and what the hell is that?), _UNICEF, and a whole host of charities that try to aid the needy have all expressed profound thanks and gratitude to Maria Alvarez.   That makes Clarice's mouth twitch.  Up until now, she has thought of her other personality as something bad.  Another woman who she didn't like who just happened to share her body.  Seeing that Maria Alvarez, in her own way, has tried to care for the lambs, is disconcerting.  

                Well, once she is safe, maybe a psychiatrist can merge her memories with those of her alternate.  Maybe Maria Alvarez can live, somehow, sort of, with Clarice Starling.  Clarice was here first, after all, and for now Maria is going to have to stay in the darkness where Clarice Starling spent eleven years.  

                On one wall is a portrait – an oil portrait, not a photograph.  It is well done and detailed, showing Dr. Hannibal Lecter sitting with his daughter on his lap.  Dr. Lecter's oil likeness smiles coolly at her, reminding her of an SS officer about to interrogate an unlucky victim.  On his lap, Susana's smile is warmer and truer. 

                Clarice approaches the portrait and tries not to shudder.  Her right hand reaches out and touches the side of the frame.  Is this some sort of false memory Dr. Lecter has implanted in her mind?  Has he foreseen even this consequence?  Shit, it could be.  

                Her questing fingers find a slim metal catch.  Pressing it causes the picture to swing out on its hinges.  Behind it is the blank face of a wall safe with a black dial.  

                _Bing fucking go.  _

But first she has to figure out the combination.  It has to be there; it's in that black hole that has replaced her memory of the past decade.  Clarice sighs.  This looks like a good make; going after it with a crowbar will take too much time.  When a woman knocks her husband out and locks him in the freezer, it is generally good strategy to depart the premises before he is free.  

                She tries her own birth date and presses down on the lever.  It holds fast.  She tries his, grimacing as she does.  Nope, not that either.  Frustration makes her slam her fist against the desk.  Whatever is in that safe has got to be good, and she wants it.   

                Maybe Susana's birthday.  Clarice closes her eyes.  It doesn't come at first, and she finds her vision growing red with anger.  What he has done is _not right, _dammit, just _not right.  Having a child was something she never thought she would do, in her old life.  That, alone among her current circumstances, is not unwelcome.  Back in Virginia, the ghosts of barrenness had whispered into the ears of Special Agent Clarice M. Starling at night as they have whispered to any woman who has not had children and knows the opportunity is passing her by.  _

                But to have a child now and not even be able to remember the day she was born?   That is _wrong, _just plain _wrong.  _

                _Quit whining.  You know when Susana was born; it's got to be in there somewhere.  Just relax and think.  You're blocking on it.  Susana's first birthday, can you remember that?  _

An image rises to her mind.  Dr. Lecter is holding a small girl, almost one.  She has shorter hair than she does now, but the same girly stuff Dr. Lecter seems to like her in:  a little dress, tights, pierced ears.  He is telling her that he wants to go all out: kiddie food for the kids, a gourmet meal for the adults, pony rides, magicians, clowns.  Her own arms are crossed and she is smiling patiently at him and at her small daughter.  _I know it's her first birthday, and I do want to do something, but don't you think that's a little much?  _Her own voice sounds soppy in her ears and she forces herself to ignore it.  That was just…that was just how Maria talked.  Maria is not Clarice.  She doesn't have to be, either.  

                Is there a calendar in this image?  Yes, there is; it takes place in this very room.  There is a calendar on Clarice's desk.  She flips through it, each day flashing by for a second.  

                _5 Marzo 2009.  Susana's birthday.  _Great.  What year?  2004 or 2005, Clarice thinks.  She flips to the next year.  _5 Marzo 2010 is_ labeled _Susana turns six.  _It hasn't happened yet.  Her cell phone helpfully told her the date when she first woke.  

                _Okay.  Not bad, Starling.  Your daughter's date of birth is March 5, 2004.  _  

                But 03-05-04 does not work.  Neither does 05-03-2004, or any permutation thereof.  Clarice's lips twist in frustration.  Maybe it's time for Mr. Crowbar to have a go at it after all.  

                _Him/her, _a voice spins out of her mind.  

                Clarice stops and blinks.  Him/her?  What the hell is that supposed to mean?  

                Wait.  Birth _years.  _Now she knows.  

                Clarice twists the dial.  Nineteen, then thirty-eight, then twenty, then four.  She holds her breath.  Was that a sound below?  Nah, Dr. Lecter couldn't be out _already…_could he be? 

                The lever goes down, and the door opens.  Clarice closes her eyes and thanks the God that she still only half-believes in.  A few things are breaking her way.  It's about time, too.  

                The safe holds a few papers and detritus.  Nothing that interesting.  At the back, though, is what she needs for right now.  A thick bundle of bills, all American twenties.  She grabs that and puts it on the desk.  In the back is a manila envelope.  She tears that open and several folders of different colors tumble out.  Passports of the best manufacture.  Argentine passports, Brazilian passports, Guatemalan passports, Mexican passports.  Three of each.  Opening each reveals either her own picture, his, or Susana's.  She paws out hers and her daughter's and leaves his.  

                She knows he will pursue her.  But she is Clarice Starling, and she knows what she can do.  She can find a way to hide.  For now, it is time for a quick trip to the airport.  It is late, but there has to be something.  All she needs are two tickets on the first flight north.  

                Clarice grabs her equipment and puts it in a black leather purse she finds on the table.  There are no weapons, and that troubles her.  Still, that may be for the best.  If she can get to the airport, she won't want weapons.  Airport security will raise questions, and that is not what she wants.  

                He can pursue her but he won't find her.  She has her own tricks.  Clarice takes a deep breath and throws the purse over her shoulder.  

                Now all she needs is Susana.  She heads out of the office and towards the stairs.  A swell of emotion catches her unexpectedly.  At long last, she will be free.  

__

__


	8. The Child Is Safe

                Clarice Starling sprints from her office and heads for the top floor.  Somewhere below her, Hannibal Lecter is locked away in a small room.  Just as he was once before.  He'll get out; Clarice knows he will.  She cannot stop him, but she can slow him down.   For now, it will keep her safe.  

                The upstairs hall is quiet and dark.  For a moment, Clarice freezes, illogically convinced that he has already freed himself and is in the hallway waiting for her.  He may be locked in the freezer, but he has also taken up residence in the back of her head.  That is nothing new.  He lived there after their first meeting until their second meeting.  

                For now the focus is the child.  Her daughter, the little girl she has borne and then can only remember in fractures and shards.  For a moment she flashes back to Feliciana Fish Market.  _The child  is safe.  _  

                She enters Susana's room to discover her daughter sleeping peacefully in her bed.  Her face looks innocent and angelic as Clarice looks down on her.  Clarice's heart begins to slow down from its racing beat as she observes the sleeping child.  

                There is little time to sit there and watch the kid sleep.  She has to move.  She has cash, papers, and the little girl.  To shake Susana awake takes only a moment.  Her little girl stares at her owlishly and blinks her eyes.  

                "Hi, Mama," she says blearily, and looks at her curiously.  

                "Susana," Clarice says urgently.  "You need to come with me.  Now."  

                "Okay," Susana says, and gives her mother a blank look.  "Is something wrong?"  

                _No, honey, actually, something is right.  **I **am right.  Now be a good girl and don't argue with me.  _

"Honey, you and I have to go," Clarice says.  "I need you to come with me, all right?"  

                Susana eyes her mother suspiciously from those maroon eyes.  "But it's bedtime," she says suspiciously.  

                "Honey…," Clarice says, and closes her eyes.  She's already seen what a daddy's girl Susana is.  Perhaps a white lie will speed things along.  "Mama just got a phone call," she says easily.  "Your aunt Ardelia is very sick.  You and I are going to go and see her."  

                Susana blinks and rubs at her eyes.  "What about Papa?" she asks.  

                Clarice swallows.  _You just had to ask.  _"Papa has some things he has to do.  He'll fly up after us in a couple days."   _I have no doubt of it, but the thing is, he won't catch us.  _

                The sheets rasp as the little girl slides out of bed.  "Okay," she says.  "Can I say goodbye to Papa?"  

                _No, you can't.  I locked him in the freezer, sweetheart.  _

"Papa is busy," Clarice says.  "Susana, don't _argue _with me.  Just get some clothes on."  

                The little girl ponders that while she gets dressed.  A dress _again.  _Clarice lets out a sigh.  She'd worn dresses as a little girl, but once she'd become an adult she dressed for comfort.  How had she ended up with a daughter enamored of frills and lace and nail polish.  

                _You're responsible too, _a voice whispers.  _You liked dressing her up cute when she was a baby.  You wanted her to have things you never had.  _

Her own voice – no, Maria's voice – echoes in her head.   It is happy and sappy.  To Clarice Starling's ears it sounds moronic.   _I just bought the **cutest **little dress and shoes for the baby.   Aren't they darling, Alonso?  _

_                Gaaaah, _Clarice Starling thinks.   Once all this is over, she will ensure Susana has some less girly clothing.  For now, her daughter will get a little more of the frills and lace.  The dress and shoes she wore at dinner serve for now, although she is fastidious and gets another pair of socks.  Clarice glances into her drawer.  Frilly anklets.   More frilly anklets than she ever thought one little girl would need.  

 Then she amazes Clarice by walking into her closet and pulling out a suitcase.  Expectantly, she looks at Clarice.  "Okay," she says.  

Clarice blinks.  "You have a packed suitcase?" she asks dumbly.  

Susana gives her mother a judging look that suggests she believes Clarice to be perhaps growing senile.  

"Of course I do," she says flatly, sounding bizarrely like Wednesday Addams.  "We _all _do.  Papa says it's so we can go on vacation whenever we want.  Aren't you getting your suitcase, Mama?"  

_How convenient, _Clarice Starling thinks, but it _does _make sense.  Dr. Lecter has been a fugitive for almost twenty years now.  To have suitcases pre-packed, ready at a moment's notice, is a logical step.  

She takes the little girl's suitcase and takes her upstairs with her.  One never knows.  There is no sound from below.  That's all for the best, Clarice thinks.  

Her bedroom is majestic.  A king-size bed rules over one corner of the room.  The opposite side of the room offers several large windows opening onto the back yard.  Back yard?  That's almost a misnomer: there is what seems like a square mile of green grass and a garden.  An attractive wooden fence separates their land from their neighbors.  

Looking at the bed brings an unexpected wave of nausea.  She thinks for a moment of the wicked serial killer above her, staring down at her with those maroon eyes.  What he has done was no sort of love.  That was rape.   Of both her body and her mind.   Clarice twists her face away from the bed as if it threatened to consume her.  But there are two suitcases – both fine black leather – in the closet, and one has the name _Maria Alvarez _on it.  

_It's probably full of stuff like garter belts and stockings and silk dresses and black lacy crap, _Clarice thinks.  Just what the proper mindless trophy wife would wear on vacation with her husband.   Still, it's clothing.  

She heads back down to the second floor.   There is the alarm panel, in the TV room.  It consists of a keypad and several lights, all flashing red.  It seems completely unfamiliar.   How does she get out of the house?  The code to the burglar alarm will not come.  It is frustrating; she _has _to know the code.  She lives here.  Inspiration strikes.   

"Honey?" Clarice says.  "Do you know the code for the burglar alarm?"  

Susana shakes her head wordlessly, observing her mother from those spooky maroon eyes.  

_Balls.  Wait a minute.  I can call someone while I try to remember.  But who?  _

Clarice grabs the phone and listens to the dial tone.  For a moment she waits, thinking.  Then it comes.  Clarice hits zero and waits for the operator to come on the line.  

"Hi," she says, wondering how it is that English words form in her mind but Spanish comes out.  "I want to place a call to the United States."  

"Very well," the operator says.  "What is the number?"  

Clarice sighs and recites Ardelia Mapp's home phone number and area code.  _Please, please, don't let her have moved.  _

The phone burrs once.  Twice.  Three times.  But there is no message telling her 'The number you have reached has been disconnected or is no longer in service.'  That's something.  

Susana gives her a pleading look.  "Mama," she stage whispers.    "I need to go to the bathroom."  

Clarice exhales in frustration.  But it's all right.  There is a bathroom on this floor not far away.  She can see it from here.  Susana can go pee in relative safety.  Dr. Lecter will have to get through her if he wants to get to Susana.  

While Susana goes to the bathroom to do her business, Clarice waits, gripping the phone with white knuckles.  A fourth ring.  Then a fifth.  

The phone picks up.  Clarice's heart leaps.  Then Ardelia's voice, for the first time in years.  

"Hello, you have reached Ardelia Mapp.  I'm not at home right now.  If you leave me a message, I'll call you back as soon as I can."  

Tears blur at the edge of Clarice's eyes.  Her friend.  Vaguely she remembers an emerald, and a note.  After all these years, she finally gets to hear her friend's voice.  

"Um," she whispers into the phone, transmitting her voice thousands of miles away.  "Ardelia, I think you know who this is.  I just want you to know…I can explain everything.  I'll be getting ahold of you shortly.  If there's any kind of warrant out for me, then I can explain.  Really."  Grief grips her throat and she trembles.  

"Christ, I'm sorry, 'Delia," she sobs.  Is it Ardelia she is crying for, or herself?  Mostly herself, she admits.  She has been forced to betray everything she held dear.  She hasn't seen her best friend in eleven years.  She has put down her sword and been Dr. Lecter's little trophy wife.  

"I'll call you soon," she whispers.  "I…I have a couple things to do, 'Delia.  Don't hate me.  Please."  

Then she hangs up the phone and puts her face in her hands for a moment or two.  Her shoulders quake with sobs.  She can't ever go back to what she used to be.  Not…not with Susana.  She'll have to figure something out.  

She moves her hands to see her daughter, fresh from the bathroom trip, eying her with a look of concern.  For her, Clarice forces herself to stop crying.  She needs to be strong, get the hell out of Dodge, and get back to the US.  Once she is there, then she can explain the truth to Susana.  It will take time, she is sure.  But for now her mission is clear: escape the mansion and get herself and her daughter to safety.  

"Don't cry, Mama," Susana says, and there is more genuine concern in her maroon eyes than Clarice has ever seen in her father's.  

_Daddy always said don't cry.  _But of course Susana does not know that her grandfather had the same opinion.  She has never met him.  She doesn't know who he was.  The figure that has loomed so large in Clarice's life has not had so much as a footprint in her daughter's.  

"It's all right," she husks.  "Mama's just…mama's just not feeling real good right now."  

Susana holds out her small arms, wordlessly offering a hug.  Clarice looks at her, and then squats down to accept his.  Her daughter's arms wrap around her.  Her own make it all the way around Clarice's body.  

Clarice inhales the clean scent of her daughter's hair, and tears rise to her eyes again.  Whether or not she works in the FBI again doesn't matter, she realizes.  What matters is herself and Susana.  She'll find a new career.  For that matter she can always do an interview with the _Tattler; _they'd pay her millions to find out what Dr. Lecter was like in bed.  Clarice doesn't recall any of that and frankly doesn't want to.  But she can make something up.  

_The child is safe.  _Those words mean a great deal to Clarice.  One more obstacle to overcome.  For that matter, it occurs to her, she can bust out a window and get out that way; what does she care if the alarm goes off?  By the time the police get there she will be gone, and even if they do stop her, they can't _force _her to go back to Dr. Lecter.  

She will win.  She _must _win.  For the sake of herself and her daughter, she will win.  

Those thoughts course through Clarice's mind as she holds Susana fiercely.  She is imperially thin like her father; there seems to be almost nothing to her.  Her hair smells like expensive shampoo.  Her cheek is warm against Clarice's.  

_My little girl, _Clarice thinks.  

Then there is a sudden thin sting at her throat.   There is an odd feeling of liquid pressure.   Her body tenses and she sucks in air sharply.  Tears of stress and fear are temporarily blocked by tears of pain.  What the hell?        

She pulls away from her daughter and holds her by the shoulders.  

"Susana?" she asks, although in her heart she knows what has happened.  

Susana withdraws the hypodermic needle from her mother's throat and carefully puts it on a small table nearby.  She looks at Clarice with concern and some fear, but also some hope.  

"I know you don't feel good," Susana says.  "So I gave you medicine from the bathroom.  It'll make you feel better."  

Horror washes over Clarice.  "Medicine?  Susana, what the hell did you do?  Where did you find that?"  

Susana looks at her somberly.  "It was in the bathroom," she says, looking concerned.  

"But…but…where did you…_how _did you…," Clarice rasps, and feels suddenly hot and flushed.  

Susana tilts her head.  Now she looks more like her father than she has since Clarice has woken up.  Somehow, before she speaks, Clarice knows what she will say.  

"Papa told me," she says simply. 


	9. Final Battle

                There is silence in the room for a few moments.  Clarice Starling stares into her daughter's eyes.  Susana's eyes are calm but concerned.  Clarice's eyes are wide with incomprehension.  This can't be happening.  Has her own daughter sold her out to Hannibal Lecter?  Will Susana really stand by while Dr. Lecter turns her back into the mindless slave doll she has been?  

                "You…you…how did you…what did you do?" Clarice stutters.  

                "Something woke me up," Susana says.  "I heard something go _bang bang _and it woke me up."  Her small face quivers.  "I was scared, so I snuck downstairs quietly.  Then I saw…,"  she seems to gather her own courage.  "I saw you dragging Papa into the freezer.  And Papa was bleeding."  She stares at Clarice as if Clarice has wounded her to the core.  "Why did you hurt Papa?  How could you ever do that?"  

                Clarice can only stare and gawp.  Susana _saw_ that?  A wave of regret washes through her.  She never wanted Susana to see that.  She had tried to protect her from all this as much as she could.  

                "So I opened the freezer door and I woke Papa up," Susana continued.  "He told me that you were sick.  He said that you were sick and that you wouldn't take the medicine. And he said you were mad at him because you were sick.    So he said there was a syringe in the bathroom.  It was already pre-measured and everything.  All I had to do was give you the shot."  Amazingly, she preens.  "He said the medicine would make you better," she repeats, and looks sad.  

                Weakness washes over Clarice like cold water.  Sweat beads up on her brow.   Her cheeks flush red.  

                "Do you know what you've done?" Clarice rasps.  

                Susana nods.  "I helped you get better," she says, and tears well up in her eyes at her mother's distress.  "You're sick, mama.  Papa said so.  But it's okay.  Papa can make you better."  Even through the tears her eyes gleam at the mention of his name.  "Papa can do _anything.  _You have to trust him, mama, you just have to."  

                A final, horrible realization strikes Clarice.  Although Susana is her daughter, bound to her by blood, there is a chasm between them.  To Clarice, this life has been an unspeakable lie.  Her very mind and soul had been warped and bent and molded into what Dr. Lecter wanted her to be.  

                But to Susana, the lie is the truth.  Clarice is her mother.  Dr. Lecter is her father.  She knows them, but by different names and as different people.  She does not know that her mother is a missing FBI agent; nor does she know that her father spent eight years in an insane asylum for his crimes.  She knows only that they are well-off Argentines, and the idea that they have ever been anything but that is not something she has considered.  

                Clarice is a daddy's girl.  Susana is, too.   Of _course _she would do what he asked.  Clarice can see him now, even as she grows weak.  _Susana, your mother is sick.  She's not well at all.  She won't allow me to help her.  So you must help her.  You can do that, can't you?  _

How could she _not _trust her papa?  The realization is distasteful.  Dr. Lecter had used a small child's unconditional love and trust to make her his pawn.  Rather like Clarice, she doesn't even know it.  

                "Papa _knew _you might get sick," Susana adds.  "He had the medicine in the bathroom for a long time.  There's one in every bathroom of the house."  

                Another blast of horror strikes her.  She'd done her morning ablutions every day for eleven years here, in this house.  The image occurs to her:  herself standing in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, combing her hair, all while the means to render her unconscious so that Dr. Lecter can retrieve his plaything lies a foot away in the medicine cabinet.    Just in case it was ever necessary.  

                "You….Susana, Jesus, you have no idea what you've done," Clarice says.  "Honey…I'm not sick.  I'm fine."  A last, desperate hope strikes her.  "I need you to pick up the phone," she says, and her body trembles. She stumbles forward and catches herself on hands and knees.  "I need you to pick up the phone and call Ardelia," she says.  

                Susana shakes her head and bites her lip.  "Papa said you would say that," she says pensively.  "I _can't.  _Papa said not to."  

                _Papa is going to brainwash me into being his full-size Barbie doll, _Clarice thinks incoherently.  _Is that what you want?  _The worst part of it is that Susana _does _want that.  She wants her mama to be back, just like it always was.   Why wouldn't she?  

                "I'm your mother," Clarice rasps.  "_I'm _telling you."  

                "You're sick," Susana protests.  Then she approaches her mother and puts her small hands on Clarice's shoulders.  Her eyes are pained and full of need.  "Oh, mama, just let papa make you better.  Please?"  

                Dizziness swirls Clarice's head.  Her elbows weaken and she falls forward.  It is all she can do to roll on her back so that she can look at her daughter.  Dr. Lecter will not make her better.  The resulting person may say she feels better, but it won't be her.   Dr. Lecter will know the difference and not care; Susana is too young to comprehend.  She will do his bidding over Clarice's.  After all, she is daddy's girl. 

                "Honey…please…help me," Clarice Starling says, her breath guttering in her lungs.   Dark spots dance in front of her eyes. 

                "Papa will help you," Susana says resolutely.  "He knows what he's doing.  He's a doctor."  

                The door swings open and Dr. Hannibal Lecter enters the room.  He has a towel pressed to his forehead with one hand.  With a sick sense of doomed pleasure, Clarice notes that the towel is crimson.  She scowls at him and her eyes narrow in helpless anger.   His expression is quizzical and amused, as if this has all been _very _entertaining.  

                Susana looks sick upon seeing him.  All the same, she runs to him, her young face troubled and needy.  Clarice watches him with distaste.  He smiles down at his small daughter.  

                "Papa," she says, her voice high-pitched and sad and hopeful.  "Are you all right?"  

                "I'm fine, Susana," Dr. Lecter says gently.  "I fell, that's all.  It'll be all right."  

                "Mama is sick," she informs him.  

                "Yes, your mama is sick.  Don't worry.  Papa can make her better."  His voice strikes Clarice as a sarcastic version of a loving father's.   From her position on the floor she can barely see tears tracking her young daughter's cheeks.  Dr. Lecter pats his daughter on the head with his non-bloody hand.  

                "Now, Susana, I need to take care of your mother.  I'll also need to see to this head wound.  For now, Papa needs you to go to your room and read quietly, or go to bed.  There are…things I need to do for her."  Is that smile increasing a notch?   It is hard for Clarice to tell.  Her vision is beginning to blur and dance.  "Things that a little girl should not see."  

                Susana's chin trembles, but she complies with her father's wishes.  Clarice can hear her swishing out into the hallway.  Then her small feet sound on the stairs, and she is gone.  Only Dr. Lecter and she remain in the room.  Just as it was before.  

                Dr. Lecter rises to his feet with a grunt and walks over to where she lies.  He grins down at her with an easy grin.  

                "Don't fight it, Clarice," he advises.  "You'll be going to sleep shortly.  Then…well, then, we'll simply fix whatever went wrong."  

                _You bastard, _is what she means to say.  She can only shape the words with her lips.  

                "Oh, _come _now, Clarice.  You were happy.  Very, very happy.  You had everything you could want.  Health, wealth, a happy marriage, and a beautiful daughter.  Do you really want to give those things up?"  He chuckles and shakes his head.  

                Her arms and legs are limp and leaden, tingling in their centers.  She cannot stand, cannot fight.  She can only stare up at him with helpless anger.  

                "Clarice, darling, do not look at it as such a negative thing.  I did not wave a wand and create a new person.  I simply reshaped aspects of your personality, bringing hidden desires to the forefront and allowing you to…part with other aspects that so troubled you."  He flashes small teeth at her in a knowing grin that reminds her of a skull.

                To speak requires superhuman effort.  "You bastard…you brainwashed me…" 

                "Your therapy resulted in differences, that is true," Dr. Lecter admits, "but that _is _the hallmark of successful therapy.  I'm not angry with you, Clarice.  It's not your fault.  We'll just call this…a relapse.  And besides…today _was_ a lot of fun."

                "Your daughter," Clarice gasps, knowing that she does not have much more time.  

                 Dr. Lecter tilts his head and looks interested.  "Susana?  Why blame her, Clarice?"  His voice is mocking.  Clarice blinks her eyes and thinks briefly of the records she has seen of Will Graham's conversations with Dr. Lecter, long before she came around.  "She did what she did out of _love.  _Her mama was sick.  Of _course _she would seek to help her mother.  Haven't you seen how troubled she was?  She cried when she let me out of the freezer.  It was _most _pathetic.  She did not understand why her mother was behaving so oddly."  

                He is right, after a fashion.  Even dizzy and nearing unconsciousness, Clarice knows that.  Susana _thought _she was doing the right thing.   But Susana is only five, and she doesn't have the critical piece of the puzzle that Clarice does.  She does not know that the mother she had was the falsehood.    She does not know her father is a monster.

                "And you used her like you used me," Clarice wheezes.  Dark fingers reach across her vision.  

                "_Used?  _Please, Clarice.  You locked me in the freezer.  What was I to do?  Freeze to death?  No, no.  I knew you would not allow me to approach you.    Susana was very worried about you.  Enlisting her aid only made sense.  She loves her mama, but she _is _her daddy's girl."  His eyes flashed.   "Don't fight it, Clarice.  Fighting simply makes it hurt.  Just let go, and you'll float away…and when you wake up, all this will be a hazy memory."  

                _If I let go, _Clarice Starling thinks, _I'll float away, but it won't be **me **who wakes up. _ She grits her teeth, focusing every iota of her will and determination on holding onto consciousness. 

But all the will and all the determination in the world can only do so much against raw pharmacology.  Clarice fights as hard as she can, but the creeping numbness and exhaustion continue.  Dark vortexes whirl over her vision.  Sounds begin to fade.   Dr. Lecter's face seems impossibly far away from her, as if he is a pallbearer staring down into her grave.  Then the sight of his visage fades entirely away into black. 

                And finally, Clarice Starling falls asleep.  


	10. Epilogue

__

Two weeks later: 

Things are returning to normal here in this mansion in Buenos Aires, and Susana is glad of it. The sun is shining, everything is bright, and it is just as it was before.

For the past two weeks, her mama and papa have been busy. She has spent most of that time with her nanny. Susana's nanny is a nice young woman of Italian descent, and her name is Mònica. She can speak French, Italian, and Greek as well as Spanish, and she has been teaching Susana these languages ever since she came to her post. Susana likes her nanny just fine, but she is worried about her mama. 

Mama has been up in the bedroom she shares with Susana's papa. She has been sick. Anytime Susana has asked her papa how mama is, he has assured her that mama is sick but getting better. Even so, there is evidence to the contrary. In her room, after bedtime, Susana can occasionally hear weeping and anguished cries from their bedroom. She can tell that the language the cries are in English. Susana speaks English very well; her papa only speaks to her in English, French or Italian. He usually chooses English, simply because that is the language she is the most fluent in, other than her native tongue. Even so, she cannot understand all the words her mama cries out after bedtime. 

Some of them, she thinks, are bad words. Mama doesn't _ever _say bad words. She has also been talking with a funny accent that Susana cannot place. Occasionally, before Mama got sick, she would occasionally listen to country music in English. The accent Mama talks with sounds sort of like that. It is hard to tell. 

But he has been busy for the past several days. Susana misses him, but she knows he has to tend to Mama. Mama is sick. A few days ago, Susana crept into her parents' bedroom while her papa was out. He was getting medicine, he said. Mama needed _lots _of medicine. There, she saw herself how sick her mama was. 

Mama had been lying on the bed. She had worn silk pajamas, and she had been limp and tangled in the sheets. At first Susana had thought she was sleeping until she had seen that Mama's eyes were open. They had been sightless and blank, like in a scary movie. Her mama had been lying on the bed like a life-size doll that wasn't being played with. Susana hadn't ever seen someone sleep with her eyes open before. It was scary. 

Susana had tried to wake her mother up, but all her shaking and all her consistent calls for her mother had been to no avail. Mama was asleep with her eyes open. Her breath had smelled sour, like chemicals. There had been a mark on her arm. The only other time Susana had seen a mark like that was when she went to the doctor's and had to get a shot. Papa must've given her a shot. That was too bad. Shots hurt. 

There had been books lying around the bedroom too. Papa liked to read books. He had taught Susana how to read when she was very little. She liked to read too, but she had never seen Papa read these books before. They were all in English. She could read English fairly well, but these books were impenetrable. There were many words in the titles of these books that she did not recognize. There was a book on something called _MKULTRA_. There were several written about _cults. _There was something called an _interrogation manual _written by someone in China. These words are ones she does not know. There were psychological articles written by doctors. Those had so many words she did not know that she had to put them down. 

There was also a large binder sitting on the table near Mama's bed. The front of the binder had a clear plastic pocket so that you could put a card in it telling people whatever you had in the binder and what it was about. The word _CLARICE _was written across the card. Susana hadn't known what that word meant, either. Her papa had written that book. She could recognize his handwriting. She didn't recognize what was written in there. She only read one sample before giving it up. _Clarice's therapy is moving along. Confronting her with her father's death has broken through an old barrier. She is coming to confront the fact that her quest to save the lambs is fruitless. Soon, I believe, she will be finally free. _

No matter how I try, I cannot figure out a way to swap Clarice for Mischa. The equations simply do not hold up. Eventually, despite all my attempts, I may have to conclude that it cannot be done. 

Yet there is another idea that occurs to me…

Then her mama had begun to stir, and Susana had fled. She was not supposed to sneak up to see her mama. That was supposed to wait until Mama got better. Her papa would have been mad at her. That, in the young world of Susana Alvarez, was the most horrible thing that could ever be imagined. 

But now things are good again. Mama had come down for dinner last night, looking slightly pale and wan but acting more like herself. That made Susana happy. Tonight, her mama and papa are going to the opera to celebrate Mama getting better. Susana will stay home with her nanny. That'll be OK; it will be fun. Mònica has said they won't do any more foreign-language drills. Instead, they will make popcorn and watch a movie. The popcorn will have to wait until Mama and Papa leave. Papa does not approve of popcorn. 

Susana can hear her mother in their bedroom, humming a tune under her breath. She walks up to the bedroom door and knocks. They will be leaving soon, and she wants to see her mama. 

A moment's hesitation before her mama's voice answers. "Who is it?" 

"Susana," the little girl answers. 

Another moment's pause. "Come in." 

To open the door takes only a moment. Once Susana is in the room, she sees why her mother hesitated. Mama is wearing a black bra and half-slip, black stockings, and high-heeled shoes. She is sitting at her makeup table staring into a lighted mirror. In one hand is a brush. She is putting on her makeup. The pleasant afterscent of perfume fills the air. 

"I'm sorry, Mama," Susana says thoughtfully. "I didn't know you weren't dressed." 

Her mother's painted lips curve up in a pleasant smile. "That's OK, honey," she says easily, in English. Susana tilts her head without thinking about it and observes her. 

"Are you feeling better?" Susana asks, her eyes on her mother's reflection in the mirror. 

Again, her mother smiles at her. "Oh, baby, I'm just fine," she assures her. "_Better _than fine." 

"Good." Susana thinks her mother looks _very _glamorous. Papa ought to be happy. Papa likes when Mama dresses up. 

For a moment, Susana wonders if she should say anything. Mama did what she did when she was sick. She may not remember. All the same, Susana is a curious thing. The question she wishes to ask is one she somehow knows better than to ask her father. 

"Now that you're better, are we going to see Aunt Ardelia? You said she was sick and we had to go see her, but that was when you were sick too." 

Her mother's hand shakes. For a moment Susana is alarmed, thinking her mother may gouge out her eye with the mascara brush. Her mother swallows nervously and looks at her. 

"No," she says quickly. "Aunt Ardelia…Aunt Ardelia got better. It's okay, baby. Just leave it." For a moment a strange look flickers over her face, and Susana finds herself thinking of when she crept into her mother's sickroom before. 

Who is Aunt Ardelia, and why does Mama react like that when Susana mentions her name? Ardelia is also Susana's middle name. Up until now, she has never met anyone else with the name in first or second position. Have Mama and Aunt Ardelia had an argument in the past? Maybe that is it. 

A pleasant smile comes over her mother's face again, covering the troubled look like a mask. All is as it was before. She pats Susana's head calmly. 

"Susana, would you be a sweetheart and get me my bracelet?" she asks brightly, changing the subject. "It's over there on my bureau." 

Susana nods and looks. There are two, lying next to each other on a piece of black velvet. "The diamond one or the emerald one?" she asks, her voice high and questioning. 

"The diamond one. Thank you, honey." Susana hands her the bracelet and she puts it on with a dexterous flip of the wrist. Mama stands up and grabs her dress. It is black and form-fitting, stopping just below the knee. Susana thinks her mother looks _very _pretty. When she is a big girl she will dress up like that, too. 

Her papa knocks and is admitted, now that Mama is dressed. He looks tall and handsome in white tie, and Susana's heart swells to see him. There is no one in the world like her papa. 

"Maria," he says to her mother, "please, we've got to get going. Ramon is ready with the limousine." 

"Just a moment," her mother smiles, and then pulls her papa away for a moment or two. Hushed words are traded and Susana cannot make them out. Her papa nods and then beckons to her. She goes to him with some trepidation. Is something wrong? 

He bends his knees to get on her level. His eyes meet hers; the same shade of maroon. She has always been proud of that. But now she is frightened, as if she has done something bad. 

"Susana," he says calmly. "Aunt Ardelia and your mother have had…a falling out. A fight. Seeing Aunt Ardelia is…not something your mother is ready for. Please don't ask about her again." 

A reproof from her father is enough to make tears rise to her eyes. She didn't _mean _anything bad. She bites her lip nervously. 

"I'm sorry, Papa," she says. "I…I didn't know." 

"Of course you didn't. Papa isn't mad, and neither is mama. But you mustn't mention these things. It upsets mama. You don't want her to get sick again, do you?" 

Susana shakes her head and tries valiantly to fight the lump in her throat. 

"There's a good girl. No, no, you needn't cry. We're not angry." 

With that, Mama and Papa are off shortly to the opera, and Susana settles in with her nanny. To make popcorn is relatively easy. Mònica drizzles real melted butter and salt over the fluffy substance. The movie is a Spanish translation of _The Secret Garden. _The Alvarez family has a large-screen television and it is almost as big as the movies. In some ways, it is better; it is in their own home. 

The story of Mary Lennox is entertaining enough, and Susana is absorbed by the story of a young girl sent to live with her uncle in a desolate old Scottish manor. Scotland is a great distance away. Mònica has showed her where it is on the map. 

Halfway through the movie, the telephone rings. At first, Susana ignores it; Mònica gets up in a rustle of clothing. Perhaps it is Mama and Papa. She can hear her nanny's hushed voice behind her. 

__

"Eehhh…este…perdone, no hablo inglès…¿habla usted español?" 

Another moment's pause. Then Mònica calls for her quietly. Susana pauses the movie and comes as asked, looking up expectantly. 

"Susana," her nanny says, "this person on the phone only speaks English. Can you talk to her?" 

Now Susana understands. Mònica can speak four languages, but English is not one of them. Her papa was more interested in a nanny who could teach her French, Italian, and Greek; he had taught her English himself. Agreeably, Susana picks up the receiver and puts it to her ear. 

"Hello?" she says. "This is Susana." 

"Hello?" The voice seems puzzled to be talking to a little girl. "I'm sorry, can you speak English?" The woman on the other end is tense and rushed. Susana recognizes the accent as American almost instantly. Her small brow furrows. Why would an American be calling? She knows no one in the United States.

"Yes," Susana says, a bit miffed. "Can I help you?" 

"Honey, I'm sorry…my name is Ardelia Mapp. I'm an agent with the FBI. From America. Is there an adult I can speak to there?" 

Susana thinks for a moment. She knows what the FBI is. Papa likes to visit their web site. She has been with him at the computer when he's done it. But why would they call here? 

"There's my nanny," Susana acknowledges, "but she can't speak English. Can you speak French?" 

"No," Mrs. Mapp says. 

"How about Italian?" 

"No." 

"Greek?" 

"OK, honey, I get the idea. No, I can only speak English." 

"Then you have to talk to me, because I can speak English and Mònica can't," Susana says, and nods her head to underscore her logic. 

"Is your mommy or daddy there?" Ardelia presses. 

Susana shakes her head before realizing that Ardelia Mapp cannot see that. "No," she says. "They're at the opera, Mrs. Mapp." 

A tense, frustrated exhalation follows. "Okay," she says. "I'm looking for my friend. Someone called me here from this number two weeks ago." Her throat clicks as if choking back a sob. "I'm looking for my friend. Her name is Clarice Starling. Have you ever heard that name before? Is your mommy named Clarice Starling, honey?" 

Susana thinks. So this is Aunt Ardelia. The woman whose name is her middle name. Maybe she wants to make up with Mama. All the same, this is a weird way of going about it. Mama's name is not Clarice; it is Maria. No, it seems something is up. 

"No," Susana says calmly. "My mama's name is Maria." 

The woman on the other end of the line lets out a sigh. "Is there anyone else there who might have called me?" 

"I don't think so," Susana says. "We have a maid named Flora, but she goes home at night." 

Ardelia Mapp seems tense. "There's no one else there?" she persists. "I don't mean to be rude, honey, but I'm looking for my friend. I'm worried about her." 

"I'm sorry about your friend," Susana says sympathetically, "but there's no one named Clarice Starling here. Maybe the phone company gave you the wrong number." 

A frustrated sigh comes from the receiver. "All right," Ardelia says in a tone that suggests she knows she will get no further. "Can you tell your mommy and daddy I called? And can you write the number down for them so they can call me? I'd really appreciate it." 

"Okay," Susana says, and obligingly writes the number down on a nearby notepad. She will not lie; she will tell her papa that Mrs. Mapp called. Papa will know what to do. 

Papa _always _knows what to do. 

"Thanks, honey," Ardelia says in a tone of resignation. "Good-bye." 

"Bye," Susana says, and pockets the phone number. To rejoin Mònica on the couch and restart the movie takes only a moment or two. 

The movie finishes quickly, and the popcorn is fresh and good. After the movie comes bath and then bedtime. 

Susana obeys the letter of the law if not the spirit; she sits in her bed and waits. Papa will come check on her. He always does. After that, perhaps, Mama and Papa will dance on the terrace. They try to do so after she goes to sleep, but from her rom she can sometimes hear the ghostly music and the _tap-tap-tap _of her mother's high heels. 

Finally, the door opens, and a male figure steps into the room. Susana sits up and looks at him, her maroon eyes shining. He looks at her with an amused look. She looks like her mother, and she knows this pleases him. She has his eyes, though, and she knows that pleases him too. For her part, she beams back at him, her own eyes alight with excitement. 

"Papa," she says. "I have something to tell you." 

Her papa seems surprised that she is still awake. "Susana, it's late. You should be in bed." 

"But the lady called," Susana whispers in protest. "Ardelia. The one who had a fight with Mama." 

Her papa freezes then. In the darkness, his maroon eyes gleam. For a moment, Susana finds herself thinking of the wolf from _Peter and the Wolf. _But this is her papa. The wolf is bad; her papa is good. Better than _anything. _

"I see," he says. "And what did she want?" 

"She asked for some lady named Clarice Starling," Susana says eagerly. "And she gave me her phone number." She takes the piece of paper from her nightstand and gives it to him. It vanishes into the pocket of his pants. 

"Very good, Susana," her papa says approvingly, and she is joyful under his praise. For a moment he thinks before speaking. "I do have a surprise for you," he says. "Tomorrow we will be going to our beach house. In Mar del Plata. An extended vacation, for a month or so. And we'll have Mònica come along as well." The family owns a mansion on the beach as well as this home here in Buenos Aires. Susana is thrilled. She loves the beach. It is right on the South Atlantic. 

"That's great!" she says excitedly. "Will you take me swimming, papa?" 

Her papa chuckles. "Yes, I will take you swimming," he says indulgently. He turns to leave, his wing tips silent on the carpeted floor. For a moment he pauses, and turns back to his daughter. 

"Susana," he says slyly, "tell me…what exactly did you tell Ardelia when she called?" 

Susana brightens. "I just told her the truth," she says perkily. 

"And what was that?" 

"I told her there was no one named Clarice Starling here." 

Her papa smiles. "_Very _good. I'm proud of you." 

Susana beams as her father pulls up the sheets over her and tucks her in before leaving the room. Mama is better again. They will go to the beach tomorrow and she will swim. Her mama will be there with her, as will Mònica and her papa. They will go swimming and she can play on her own stretch of private beach. Everything is good again just as it was. Above all, her papa is proud of her, and that is the _best_, the most wonderful thing a little girl like Susana can hope for. 

After all, she is daddy's girl. 

_FIN _

__


End file.
